The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[KF0002]

I have a question for all you hatchers and breeders. Maybe I asked already. What do you do with all your chicks??? Do you have a market for them? Do you sell them to hatcheries or through TS or RK? I'm hoping to do some hatching myself before long and I'm terrified I'm going to be overrun with hundreds of chicks and not know what to do with them!

I very rarely sell birds. Mainly because chicken peddlers in my area have driven the prices of poultry and livestock way down selling diseased and parasite ridden birds cheap. That coupled with all the wishy washy people, hagglers, and no shows, we just don’t try to sell many birds for our own mental peace. Occasionally someone will approach me on fb and I will sell a pair of turkeys or something here and there, but I don’t advertise much because of all the back and forth you have to deal with and people jerk you around. I may sound cynical but I don’t mean to be. People have made me that way.

We hatch some chicks to give to friends each year. I give one of my friends my older (4-5 year old) hens and they retire on her farm. So I hatch and replenish old layers regularly and hatch enough birds to use as brood stock every year. Most of our layers free range. And my grow outs free range also so there are always a few losses with that here and there, as it comes with it. It always seems to balance out in a good way. The birds that survive are smart, strong, and predator savvy so it naturally culls the weak and yields strong stock.

We cull every rooster we don’t need as early as we can. Most potential breeder birds have to be grown out to 5-6 months old to see how they turn out to select through them. After that, we butcher the culls. We hatched a ton of white leghorn cockerels in the second set of chicks we hatched this winter so all but a couple of those will be culled by the time they are around a month old to offload feed cost and thin out the brooders. All of the cockerel chicks produced by the Buff that was throwing green legged pullets will be culled as soon as I can confidently tell males from females. You cannot outwardly see which males are carrying the gene and I don’t want that gene perpetuated in my projects so there is no need in growing out those cockerels. Any cockerel chick that is GDW or crested from the BC1 Crele project will be culled ASAP. Those are just a few examples. We are pretty quick to cull young roosters as chicks when we can because the cost of growing them out is far more than what meat you get out of them if you grow them out to butcher them, unless they are broilers that is. And you can’t sell them all because no one wants to pay much for a bunch of roosters. I refuse to give them away in my area because the aforementioned chicken peddlers jump on any free chicken they can get to re-sell and they are put in tiny filthy cages and kept in very poor conditions until they are sold or eaten.

Even though we cull a lot of roosters young, we still end up growing out plenty of roosters to butcher but culling as many as we can as chicks/juveniles cuts down on the feed cost a great deal. And offloads unnecessary birds from the brooders to avoid overcrowding. It sounds cold, but it is necessary and they are culled quickly and humanely. A big factor to raising healthy livestock and breeding is being quick to cull birds that will not move your bloodline in a positive direction. Breeding weak stock perpetuates weak stock. And there will always be a surplus of roosters you don’t need, so better to cull them early when you can.

Sorry that was long winded.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I very rarely sell birds. Mainly because chicken peddlers in my area have driven the prices of poultry and livestock way down selling diseased and parasite ridden birds cheap. That coupled with all the wishy washy people, hagglers, and no shows, we just don’t try to sell many birds for our own mental peace. Occasionally someone will approach me on fb and I will sell a pair of turkeys or something here and there, but I don’t advertise much because of all the back and forth you have to deal with and people jerk you around. I may sound cynical but I don’t mean to be. People have made me that way.

We hatch some chicks to give to friends each year. I give one of my friends my older (4-5 year old) hens and they retire on her farm. So I hatch and replenish old layers regularly and hatch enough birds to use as brood stock every year. Most of our layers free range. And my grow outs free range also so there are always a few losses with that here and there, as it comes with it. It always seems to balance out in a good way. The birds that survive are smart, strong, and predator savvy so it naturally culls the weak and yields strong stock.

We cull every rooster we don’t need as early as we can. Most potential breeder birds have to be grown out to 5-6 months old to see how they turn out to select through them. After that, we butcher the culls. We hatched a ton of white leghorn cockerels in the second set of chicks we hatched this winter so all but a couple of those will be culled by the time they are around a month old to offload feed cost and thin out the brooders. All of the cockerel chicks produced by the Buff that was throwing green legged pullets will be culled as soon as I can confidently tell males from females. You cannot outwardly see which males are carrying the gene and I don’t want that gene perpetuated in my projects so there is no need in growing out those cockerels. Any cockerel chick that is GDW or crele from the BC1 Crele project will be culled ASAP. Those are just a few examples. We are pretty quick to cull young roosters as chicks when we can because the cost of growing them out is far more than what meat you get out of them if you grow them out to butcher them, unless they are broilers that is. And you can’t sell them all because no one wants to pay much for a bunch of roosters. I refuse to give them away in my area because the aforementioned chicken peddlers jump on any free chicken they can get to re-sell and they are put in tiny filthy cages and kept in very poor conditions until they are sold or eaten.

Even though we cull a lot of roosters young, we still end up growing out plenty of roosters to butcher but culling as many as we can as chicks/juveniles cuts down on the feed cost a great deal. And offloads unnecessary birds from the brooders to avoid overcrowding. It sounds cold, but it is necessary and they are culled quickly and humanely. A big factor to raising healthy livestock and breeding is being quick to cull birds that will not move your bloodline in a positive direction. Breeding weak stock perpetuates weak stock. And there will always be a surplus of roosters you don’t need, so better to cull them early when you can.

Sorry that was long winded.

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Very practical and realistic. I appreciate you taking the time to write that all out!

 

[KF0002]

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Very practical and realistic. I appreciate you taking the time to write that all out!

Yw! I’m glad that helps. Some people think of culling cockerel chicks is mean or cruel. But I care where my birds go when they leave my property, and I can’t in good conscience give surplus roosters to the chicken peddlers for them to be mistreated. If there was a decent market for roosters in my area I would grow them all out and sell them. But you literally have to give them away, so better to be culled and spared the chicken peddlers in my opinion.

Chickens have no concept of tomorrow or the future. They exist mainly on instincts that are inborn into them. As long as their life was good up until the moment they are culled and they are taken care of and not mistreated until that point is what matters the most. Living well and simply being alive are two totally different things. We treat every animal with kindness and they are all plump and healthy. Never do they go to roost with an empty belly. The day they are culled is the only bad day they will ever have. And even then it is brief and humane.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Exactly! I totally agree. For emergency culls on adult birds, we use the broomstick method. I am so glad we learned this method, we had tried other methods and ... well nothing else worked as well for us. We have a Mennonite lady near us who processes any we plan to eat, this is just not something we feel qualified to do. She charges $2 per and does a lovely job. For younger birds and chicks, I suppose we will use ... I don't know what to call it. But anyway, it will be instantaneous. In life or death, we will always respect our fellow creatures and treat them with compassion for they are God's creation, too.

 

[KF0002]

Exactly! I totally agree. For emergency culls on adult birds, we use the broomstick method. I am so glad we learned this method, we had tried other methods and ... well nothing else worked as well for us. We have a Mennonite lady near us who processes any we plan to eat, this is just not something we feel qualified to do. She charges $2 per and does a lovely job. For younger birds and chicks, I suppose we will use ... I don't know what to call it. But anyway, it will be instantaneous. In life or death, we will always respect our fellow creatures and treat them with compassion for they are God's creation, too.

Agreed. Every creature of God's creation deserves compassion and respect. For birds we butcher, my husband cuts their jugular on both sides and bleed them out. Young chicks, juveniles, or just plain culls whether young or old get the good old fashioned cervical dislocation. Older juveniles and adults, my husband grabs them by the head and swings them around in a circle, effectively dislocating their cervical vertebrae and severing their spinal cord. For chicks, he simply twists their head around manually, a smaller form of the cervical dislocation method. Sometimes their heads come completely off, especially very young chicks. My neighbor has done the broomstick method, and it is equally effective and humane. If I am forced to cull a chick because it is suffering and my husband isn't around, I quickly snip their head off with a pair of sharp dress-maker scissors. It is the best method I have found for me, to make culling chicks bearable. Any older bird that needs to be culled I put in a keep stall to wait on my husband to do it. I am very tender hearted and usually leave the culling to my husband and son and I walk to the other side of the yard while they do it. But while I am tender hearted, and hate to watch my animals die, I wholeheartedly know, understand, and advocate that culling is necessary if you are going to keep livestock.

 

[KF0002]

Also, you could learn to process your own birds if you all are up to it. There are tons of YouTube videos on the subject, with many different methods, whether you skin them or scald and pluck them. I couldn't justify paying $2 per bird to process them, after all the money it already costs to grow them out in feed and whatnot to get them to butchering size. But if that works for you, then that is best and I understand. I am just cheap. lol

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Also, you could learn to process your own birds if you all are up to it. There are tons of YouTube videos on the subject, with many different methods, whether you skin them or scald and pluck them. I couldn't justify paying $2 per bird to process them, after all the money it already costs to grow them out in feed and whatnot to get them to butchering size. But if that works for you, then that is best and I understand. I am just cheap. lol

So far we haven't done so many that cost is an issue. Beats grocery store prices! And no, we tried it. I'm old and arthritic and he's ... well, it's just not something he can do.

 

[KF0002]

So far we haven't done so many that cost is an issue. Beats grocery store prices! And no, we tried it. I'm old and arthritic and he's ... well, it's just not something he can do.

I understand that. It sounds very convenient.