Ways to find good homes for boys from hatch?

[maggienchamp]

I have found someone who will take them and care for them properly, most importantly they will not be eaten. I can visit them whenever I would like

So....I am going to be hatching this spring.

This just shows it can be done everbody!!!

 

[cmfarm]

I don't want to be stick in the mud, but what if you hatch 20 and 18 of them are boys (it does happen). Will they take all of them?

 

[[email protected]]

some people might want them for a breeder flock, i know if my hen didn't turn out as a roster (feed store said we only sell hens, i really wanted a roster or 2) i would have looked every where to get one.

 

[maggienchamp]

I don't want to be stick in the mud, but what if you hatch 20 and 18 of them are boys (it does happen). Will they take all of them?

That is a good point, but I won't be hatching that many eggs to begin with (only about a dozen). So, lets say I hatch 5, and 4 of them turn out to be boys (really hoping that doesn't happen!), I have a friend already taking a couple, then this person would only be taking one or two

Hopefully it all works out!

 

[beehiveginger]

Interesting thread, I would eat the roosters if they were too many. When are they ready to eat (how old?) and where do you take them to butcher? Do you butcher yourself. I do have a book with explanation on this but I am not sure if I am up for it.

 

[haemony]

Dogs don't usually bark for 2 hours at 4am.

Sure they do! The dog in my neighborhood bark morning, daytime, middle of the night. Sometimes they bark for a long time in the middle of the night. Barking dogs are annoying to me no matter what the time of day. I prefer a rooster's crow. Crowing doesn't bother me at all..except when my roo sneaks up on me and crows right in my ear.

 

[Kedreeva]

Yes, we all need a firm plan prior to hatching eggs. Mine is believing what I'm told.

mine too!

Unfortunately listing them on Craigslist usually does net you people that will say one thing and do another, but after the roo is out of my hands it's not my business really. We personally eat or pelt our roosters, but I did have two I was especially fond of that I ended up finding good homes for. One to a lady who had been looking specifically for a buff laced bearded polish rooster (and who picked him up and cuddled him when I handed him over and she baby talked to him about yogurt and mealworms as she walked back to the car

) and another to a guy who came to pick up an extra peacock of mine and fell in love with the bantam speckled polish roo in his pen with him. Nice looking roosters here generally end up as pelts though- I have a friend who does pelt taxidermy, and she sells the saddle and neck feathers to hairdressers. She actually had a lady offer her $300 for just the pelt of saddle feathers off of a golden phoenix roo... crazy.

And to the OP- I'm glad you found homes for them, and it's not wrong to look for homes for them, and I applaud you for looking BEFORE you hatched. There are a lot of people here being negative (and I don't disagree with them actually, there's a lot of truth in what they say about the fates of most roosters), but I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did in this instance. I would say differently if you just hatched without thinking and then were looking for homes for the roosters, but that is not the case.

What I will say is that I agree with one of the earlier posts that said you will feel differently when they turn on you. The roosters I keep are either nice boys or if they are very mean, they are locked in with the peacocks, who have zero tolerance for fighting roosters. If I go in that pen, I know I have to be on my guard and watch the roosters. The head honcho polish in that pen has only gotten me one time (though he's given it dozens of tries and gotten a boot to the face), but when he did, he snuck up behind me and gave me a 3 inch gash down my thigh and multiple puncture wounds down both my legs- THROUGH my jeans. I hatched him myself, I raised him in my bedroom, he was the second chicken I ever hatched... but roosters are not your friends. The only reason he isn't dinner right now is because I want his lineage next year.

 

[spikennipper]

I'm kind of in the middle on this one! what I do when I hatch some eggs is any roos I raise I will first attempt to find homes for, I always try not to get attached to any chicks I hatch or name them until I know I will be keeping them i.e when I know they are hens. I have only once managed to sell a roo for a few pounds to a nice lady that had a flock of girls but needed a roo, he is now very happy in his new home but he was the lucky one, the majority do not sell, I do not offer them for free as I don't want other people getting the benefit and eating them for free when I have done all the hard work! so I do cull them and either eat them or feed them to my cat so at least we get the benefit, one thing I have found though the trickiest part is not killing/plucking even though I don't like doing it, I find that eating them is difficult! to me they taste different, perhaps because they were free range I dunno but I also keep visioning them and it makes me ill I often can't finish the whole plate, I have no issues eating shop bought chickens whatsoever! any one else have this problem?!

 

[Kedreeva]

I find that eating them is difficult! to me they taste different, perhaps because they were free range I dunno but I also keep visioning them and it makes me ill I often can't finish the whole plate, I have no issues eating shop bought chickens whatsoever! any one else have this problem?!

The delicious, delicious taste of home grown rooster.... mmmm
Seriously though, what you may be running into here is an actual difference in taste or texture. Roosters, at least ones that are not purpose bred for eating, are often "stringy" or have a "gamey" taste. They have muscle that they USE, as opposed to broilers that just put on muscle they don't really do anything with because they have such short lives. The easiest way, and what you might try next time, is letting the butchered/cleaned bird sit in the fridge for 3 days before eating. This allows some of the connective tissue to break down and the meat tenderizes. Or, only cook your roos in stew like a friend of mine does.

 

[Soap Junkie]

Boy that is the truth! Gamey and stringy! I have a friend that hatched out 2 roosters and we took them. My husband butcherd and cleaned them but I had the WORST time getting them in my mouth and chewing! I now have 10 baby chicks that a broody hatched out on Saturday and I can not have roosters where I live either. So I plan to eat them but I am looking for ways to make them taste better and trying to get my mind set on the farming way. This has been done for centurys and I know I can do this. ( I think) So I feel your pain. As for making them taste better, can I coral them for say the last few weeks before butchering so they dont get so much excersie? How about a really good diet too so they fatten up a bit. Good luck to you spikenniper, if you discover some way to get the right mind set, please pass it on!