should i keep a cock in small flock

[philyc]

evening all.

looking for some advice;

i currently have one leghorn, a pekin and a 17wk old speckled sussex. my pekin goes broody fairly often so we have hatched 3 brahmas, from what i can see i have 2 female and 1 male, all 6 weeks old now.

the two females will be going to a friend who wants chickens as pets/layers. so that leaves me with the young male.

with the pekin going broody every now and again i thought it might be better for us to just keep the cock to help produce fertile eggs and we'll use whatever offspring from the brahma/sussex/leghorn as meat birds etc.

the question is, is it worth it? he will be the only male in a flock of 3 females.

if the consensus is that its not worth keeping him then he'll be left to get a bit bigger then eaten.

in other news i slaughtered my older brahma (same age as the sussex), had most of the neighborhood children over to watch, and had her as a roast dinner today... was absolutely amazing, just a little small.

any advice greatly appreciated.

Phil

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would keep him and see how he turns out. Sometimes people not familiar with roosters can inadvertently raise one that becomes aggressive towards them. Another problem is sometimes a maturing rooster can be a terror. They will try to mate often and sometimes anything. He could wear the feathers off the hens backs, or even become aggressive with them at times. Every rooster is different though, so I would raise him up and if at anytime he becomes too much you can butcher him out.

It's good that you are teaching kids where their food comes from, and what their food is, so good job for that. Most kids seem not to understand basic nature anymore.

 

[bobbi-j]

I agree with Oldhen. Keep him, see how it goes, eat him if it doesn't work out.

 

[aart]

I agree with Oldhen. Keep him, see how it goes, eat him if it doesn't work out.

Agrees with OHLD and bobbi-j.