Topic of the Week - What do/can you do with unwanted roosters?

[PippinTheChicken]

I love hatching and raising chicks. This results in a lot of roosters. I would love to keep a rooster or two, but I'm sub-urban, and if I was only 2 houses along, I would be able to keep them
I get very attached to the chicks that I raise, so it's always hard for me to rehome my beloved boys. I would NEVER kill my boys, I raise them to have manners, and thye grow up to be friendly and respectful to humans.
I usually hold onto them as long as I can, and when they start crowing loudly, I scramble to find them a new home.

• I start by putting them on some pet rehoming websites & on BYC
• I hang posters in my 2 feed stores
• I ask anyone I know with chickens
• Last case scenario, there's a place (aka a chicken shelter) where you pay to take your hens and roos and they are rehomed. Good place, they just don't give you updates on your chickens.

I've sold 2 silkie boys on BYC
I've rehomed 1 polish boy to a friend of a family member
I've taken 2 d'uccles to the chicken shelter
I've rehomed one silkie boy and one mixed breed boy to a local person*

*this local person is an experienced chicken keeper, who lives close but further into the countryside. He had one rooster who is 12 years old, so was looking for a younger one. We took the silkie first, and visited his place (which was amazing). He had lots and lots of hens and a very large ramging area for them. He showed us his integration plan, too.
We contacted him again a month later asking of he wanted another rooster, he said he was happy to take any, and while we dropped him off we saw the silkie boy too. He said we can visit the boys whenever we want

 

[jus10inla]

We/I don't have luck using the broomstick method

I use a piece of t post. Its solid metal with an edge on 3 sides and has the nibs for fencing . Once the head / neck goes under, foot on each side of head.. pull straight up . Instant separation. Hardly any flapping. Clpser u get to head with feet and firmer push dowm with feet easier it goes. Im a little over 300 lb, so really its dead soon as i lock the neck in

 

[Liz Birdlover]

What do you call a group of roosters

My handsome boys!

All of mine are love-bug lap-snugglers...no way could I consider culling a gorgeous Roo that loves me.

(Bachelor coop here)

 

[Liz Birdlover]

We have a monthly poultry swap in our area. It is well attended-- in good weather, you might see 1000 chickens/other poultry/small animals for sale. I sold one of my cockerels there this month, and plan to take another next month. It is free to set up there, and it's fun to talk to other chicken people and see all the different birds, such as this man selling seramas....
View attachment 1387420

Omg I LOVE that little boy Roo!!! How precious!!!
Thoughts of building coop #4 are entering my mind (we're still currently working building coop 3)
Don't tell my sweetheart

It would be dangerous if I attended that swap...I'd come home with MANY

 

[Liz Birdlover]

I was actually about to start a thread about one of my bantam cochin cockerels. I removed him from my breeding pens because of his hackle leakage. Was about to cull him a couple weeks ago, but decided I'd keep him for a bit. He was living alone in my baby grow-out coop. Well it was time for some inside chicks to be moved outside over the weekend, so Zippy was going to have to go! But I put the 3-week old chicks in with him, and turns out he's a good Momma!!

I'm sure others have done this, I was searching when I ran across this thread. Anyone else use roosters without hens for raising chicks?
View attachment 1389195


He even let them sleep with him.
View attachment 1389196

I have a Buff Orpington, Romeo, a lover boy. I just discovered this year he is also a wonderful surrogate papa & babysitter! He's raised 8 EEs, & a few are Roos, so yeah, he is a total sweetheart.



Bottom pics, the EEs he's still raising. I suspect 3 may be Little Roos, but so far everyone has been cooperative, kind & respectful. Romeo tidbits treats to All 8.

 

[SueT]

Last year we had one extra cockerel, and I decided to keep him along with his father, after reading a BYC member’s post regarding the usefulness of keeping a junior and senior rooster in the flock.
They did get along just fine, the younger learning by observing his wise and patient father. It came in very handy when the senior rooster was killed by a raccoon. The son took over seamlessly, and at one year old is now a competent flock master. Pic shows both of them....elder is in the background.

 

[Iluveggers]

We try to live sustainably, so this year we grew what we could at home, ate venison from this past winter, some meat from local farms, and right now have 3 roosters in the freezer. Since my second hatch after selling 3 SR chicks, we ended up with 3 girls and 6 boys…each of my aunts are keeping one, and the 4 most aggressive will go into the freezer. One is already a jerk at 12 weeks.

I thought it would be much harder to eat a rooster I raised, but they have had an excellent life. We purposely did not cuddle or name the chicks in the hatched group (except the two legbar pullets), and kept separate brooders for the hatched chicks and sexed pullets that came at the same time.

Next year I am planning on at least 2 hatches. I will sell SR chicks from both, try to sell trios once the genders can be figured out as accurately as possible (6-8 weeks most likely), and any extra roos will go to the freezer again. We eat a lot of chicken, and since I will not buy any at the grocery store, this allows me to have a hobby I enjoy and not have to buy chicken later (true local free-range chicken is expensive, but we bought it for years).

Unfortunately I cannot keep my own rooster as I am in town, but next year I am excited to hatch chicks from our farm flock with the Orpington roo that I hatched this year! (He is the gentlest of all so one aunt already claimed him).

Another family member is going to get a flock of 6 next year, so I am helping set up a flock for him that will produce sex-links, and can hatch and sell pullets right from the get-go, keeping the roos at the farm until the are big enough to process.

 

[CrazyChicken Lady]

I tried to butcher two boys I didn’t want-never again I know that now! it just wasn’t for me. Two other boys I have given to a friend who normally excepts extra birds. I’ve also just kept extras and hoped for the best.

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

I luv em...til I find em a good home!

 

[FattySmough]

I'm interested in this thread's topic as I want to try hatching chicks in the near future.