too many roosters

[emjay]

right now I'm facing my first, well, not my first, but, facing a quandry.

I had two batches of eggs hatch under broodies. Now they are growing up, fast. One set is 13 weeks old , I had 8, I have 6 left - 4 are roosters , 2 are pullets.
I am keeping the pullets as replacements for my present egg flock ( who are now 1 year of age). The question is, when do I need to be concerned about the roos fighting over the female?
2 are now crowing , yuck.
I can't seem to give them away and they are too scrawny to eat.
and I don't want to keep them to eating size as I have 3 roos already who don't shut up

and I'm thinking the neighbors wouldn't appreciate a whole choir of crowing roosters.

 

[chickensrock98]

have you tried putting them on craigslist for free ?

 

[emjay]

I have them on two different popular selling places like craigslist for free. nothing yet. I can try craigslist too.

 

[happyfeetfarm]

Craigslist as suggested and here we have a buysaletrade site that we use and many times you can put a flyer up at the local feed store. Don't feel bad about them being scrawny that just means they will get a good home (people always think they can do better even when they are just young and scrawny). My experience that they usually start having their disagreements about the hens at about 20 weeks of age. If you have a seperate pen away from the hens you can put your roosters in there, away from the hens they usually won't fight. Good luck.

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

I have 5 extra roosters and today i decided to take care of 2 of them...I was thinking also about getting Cornish X's for the freezer, but after today....NOT THINKING THAT ANYMORE...too much work....and the cleaning of the inside and cutting it up...well I suck at it.

 

[MuranoFarms]

D'Angelo N Va. :

I have 5 extra roosters and today i decided to take care of 2 of them...I was thinking also about getting Cornish X's for the freezer, but after today....NOT THINKING THAT ANYMORE...too much work....and the cleaning of the inside and cutting it up...well I suck at it.

It is a lot of work, but wait till you cook them!

I have recently started to process my extra roo's. I post the pure breeds for sale first (not 'dinner meat' cheap!) and see if I can find them a home. If not then it's "off with their heads!" I think it's more fair to them to process them here then to give them away to someone who's going to do the same thing to them anyway! Who knows if they would get the same standard of care there before processing day. That really worries me!

I did my last set at 20 weeks and they were a good size. Somebody on here told me 16 weeks should be big enough. I just got busy and didn't get to them right away

 

[patandchickens]

At 13 weeks they'd make good (if small-portion) fried chicken; or skin them and simmer them in water for a) some of the tastiest chicken meat you've ever had for sandwiches, chicken salad, casseroles, etc AND b) THE tastiest chicken broth you've ever had, for soup or for cooking with.

JMO, good luck, have fun,

Pat