We don't want to kill chickens

[Desert Rooster]

you dont have to be rude to the op, if you dont have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself
Quote:

 

[harveyhorses]

From my way in the past experience with 4H they make NO bones about this is where your food comes from. They had charts of wher to make your cuts, best ways of keeping ie, cut up or whole.
Just be warned, even the kids that showed them and loved them knew what would come.
Good luck

 

[EM Squared Farms]

I'm happy to see that this thread still seems to be of interest to people (compared to my other posts).

I guess there are different kinds of farmers. Like I mentioned earlier, I guess you could categorize my son into more of a show chickens breeder. We raise our chickens to select for the best show quality traits.

He is working on improving the breed for 5 breeds (4 bantam breeds and 1 standard size breed).

I understand very well about the opinion about killing animals. My husband actually has this view.

We entered 4H mostly to win at the Fair to build credibility for each chicken. It's more of a social club for the kids to build their character (learning about public speaking, talking with people coming to see the animals, bringing their animals to cheer up the old people at a retirement homoe, fundraising, making Christmas gifts for the county officials, etc). My younger son is planning on joining this year too.

Back to the issue of different kinds of farmers.....pointing to the fish industry...I'm not an food aquaculture farmer either. I don't raise fish for food. I'm an ornamental fish farmer. I raise ornamental fish for people as pets.

Same thing with my goats. I don't raise meat goats, but dairy goats.

We're all trying to accomplish the same things right ? Raise them well with different end results.

I was doing the math again in my head last night in bed. 111 chickies between 5 breeds. I think we had 6 chickie deaths. So we are down to 105 chickies. We have sold 13, so that's 92 chickies left. And I'm allowing him to keep 10 per breed. So let's assume a trio of parents so that's another 7 per breed (x 5 breeds) is 35 he can keep. So we are down to 57. Unfortunately, more than half of this number are cockerels. We did sell most of our Americana hens (that were for sale). Well, I'll give us until next spring's hatching season to bring this for sale # down to 0.

Maybe some kids in 4H will want a beautiful rooster. He did win his biggest trophy for the rooster crowing contest (whose rooster can crow the most in 15 mintues).

Definitely on the list for next year's breeding is only the black silkies, splash silkies and probably the americana bantams since they sold so well (guess they all like the beautiful sky blue eggs). Although we did just sell one maran hen this morning (which has the chocolate colored egg).

And yes, at 4H (I remember seeing the charts of the cow of all the different cuts of meat). The 4H club we are in is called Paws-n-Claws for small animals (rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, ducks, quail). I think the FFA deals more with the cows and pigs.

Well, once again, thanks for your time to reply to this thread to share your thoughts. I enjoy reading them and commenting on them.

We're all farmers, just different kinds.

Thanks !

 

[Mystic Farms]

Quote:
Lisa,

I met your son and husband at the July swap. Your son will be a fine salesman, he definitely has the heart for it and enjoys talking birds!
How wonderful that we can each raise toward our own goals!

My boyfriend can't eat anything he has raised - he can butcher them but not eat them lol. We spoke to a couple folks this way that are like minded and are swapping out - we all feed the same and are using the same meaties so it all works out lol. Another option is to sell processed birds at the farmers market - a bit more work but a possible solution.

The auction sales can be real hit or miss .... selling as low as 50 cents for mutt chickens to average 5-8 dollars. A lot of breeders I know pull rooster chicks very young and sell them at auction before they have much feed into them. Of course that's rough w silkies, but easy enough with your other breeds. Just some thoughts, getting creative in this economy is a must. Again, it was a delight meeting your family.

 

[EM Squared Farms]

Hi Mystic Farms ! My son is curious which person you are. Thanks for the kind words about him. You should have seen him in action at the local farmers' market. He did so good at fundraising for his 4H club.

Korbin wants to know if you bought chickens from him or what kind of chickens you were selling.

For now, we're content keeping all our chickens, trying to sell them one at a time.

Just exploring all our options. I'm keeping a mental list.

Thanks !

 

[mikensara]

Quote:
we have sorta the same idea in mind going to hatch our own and have them butchered whatever we have excess are going to be donated for food pantries, given to family, its also our plan for our excess eggs we could sell them but we have so many families in our area who are low income and dont mind if they are fertilized either.

 

[EM Squared Farms]

We did give away 5 Rhode Island Red roosters (standard size) to a Spanish family with 3 young boys at no charge of course. It was funny. They came to get 2 at first and then one day she felt like making chicken soup and called her friend that knew us from church and they came over for the other 3. These roosters were too aggressive with our poor first chickies that grew up into hens (Cornish x Rock). They pecked out the back of their heads trying to mate with them too much. Now in hindsight, we're wondering if it was really those Wheaten Old English Game hens who did the damage. They are kind of aggressive too. They (the Wheaten Game hens) pecked the back of our last Cornish x Rock hen, when we returned her back to the hen pen after she recovered and grew her feathers back in. The Cornish x Rock hens don't walk too well, since they are bred for food and grow very fast. We had no idea that's what those cute little yellow chickies would grow up into. Now we know better. Same with those Wheaten hens. They were mystery chickies when we bought them. Then my son ordered some bantam chicks online of particular breeds and now he's been successful at breeding them. We'll see how it all goes.

I'll keep that option (your suggestion) in mind (add it to the list of options). I know there is some local meat market nearby that locals talk about.

I'm considering things. But for now, on the top of the list are going to more swap and sales (I think we may try to make it to 2 next month, and maybe we can even organize one locally with 4H), trying to sell at chicken shows (Oct. & Nov.), the county fairs nearby (Jan.-Mar.). It's a tentative plan for now. Next on the list to try may be those livestock auctions (still researching). Last resort would be to places for food (that Spanish family our friend knows, other needy people(?) or for that bobcat trapper). Seems like there are lots of options to choose from. For now, it seems we can still keep them and try and sell them one chicken at a time.

 

[RHRanch]

Hey - my 2 cents here. I think its fine if you don't want to kill your own chickens, but if you raise chicks in high numbers (as you have now found out), you tend to run into the biggest conumdrum of chicken raising. There are extra boys and not enough pet homes for them. In my mind, there are a couple of ways to handle this:

1. Hatch only when you have a list of potential adoptees for the roosters you will hatch. Then, no unwanted roosters.
2. Sell to others to eat (like on craigslist or to local feedstore). I think its great to provide quality food for people, so I have a person I give my roos to, and they sell processed birds for locals.
3. Kill and eat them yourself. (I know you don't want to, its just one of the options)
4. Show and raise, but don't breed yourself. Buy grown stock or started stock you know the genders of.

 

[bantyshanty]

Quote:
I know alot of farmers and people who own chickens who would not like to kill them.
I don't think its very nice calling them "wanna-be's".
In no way am i defending that it was a good idea to hatch 111 chicks, but they had good intents.
Maybe they didn't realize how hard it would be to home so many of them as "pets".
Count this as a learning experience and obviously they won't do it again.
I wouldn't count this as a chicken mill because chicken mills are like hatchery's where they hatch a bunch of chickens and don't care what happens to them.
Mills don't care if they have to slaughter the chickens they no longer need.
These people DO care what happens to these chickens and would prefer not to kill them.
Everyone should be allowed to have their own opinions here.
I respect the fact that you have no problem with killing your poultry but i just ask that you respect the people who don't agree to do the same.
Some people, like myself, have always loved animals, rescued saved animals, worked at animal shelters, etc.
I could never harm them, but i would also never hatch a bunch of chickens i could never home.
Anyway, im just saying, i think they get it, no point to keep beating them up about it.
They probably will have to sell their roo's for people to eat.
But respect their opinion to not want to slaughter their own animals.
Thank you.

X 2, thank you, foxypoproxy.
It's a big learning experience for anyone the first time they hatch and a great big lesson in creative problem solving
when the person hatching & caring for the batch of chicks goes the extra mile to ensure all the roosters have proper respectful homes or proper respectful ends,
if that's what they're aiming for. Butchering what you raise is a different sort of lesson, and both have value for people's development in different ways.
Foresight is certainly golden, when all's said, as well

 

[EM Squared Farms]

Foresight is golden......I've never heard that phrase before (I usually learn new sayings like that all the time from my husband).

I've heard "Hindsight is 20/20"

I suppose that is a very good suggestion. Sometime I guess it's hard to predict the future (when you're inexperienced at something). But those who are older and wiser I guess can see it coming (the future about certain things) a mile away. All we could see is how much our children love these little chickies and chickens and assumed other kids and people would feel the same way. Big surprise. A lot of people like to kill chickens. (maybe not like, but do)

We can't wait for 4H to start up again to see if any kids new to the club might want some chickens as their animal "project" for the year (for showing at the fair and for keeping the notebook on). They are allowed to "show" 6 animals. The main other animal in the club are rabbits.

Well, this adventure on Back Yard Chickens did prove to be fruitful. We have a few more options on the list that we didn't have before on how to better sell our chickens or what the other options are. We'll focus on sales, sales, sales for now. Then we will re-evaluate next year's planned hatching. I think I will definitely let the little one hatch some of his own eggs for next year - his black silkies.