What do people do with boy chicks?

[Mylied]

Very interesting points of view everyone. I really appreciate the different viewpoints. This has been a really good “debate”. Sorry to the OP for thread stealing.

As far as my emotions, I wear my heart on my sleeve so I have been told. While my son gets his cues from me, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. Therefore sending our little cockerels away to be butchered or rehomed if possible.

For those who say they don’t become attached to the males how do you do this? From what i understand you cant tell gender for a few weeks. By this time you can bet that my kids and I will have named and snuggled all of the chicks probably more than necessary. Full disclosure, our hens get daily kisses from my little man.

I've been reading along. I am one who butchers the chickens. We also send pigs to the butchers and for the first time sent a couple goats to the butcher. I am very much an animal lover and I don't eat meat myself. Chickens are great in teaching the harder life lessons. They are great at dieing, whether from sickness or from predators. After a few years of dealing with unpleasantness on occasion, and very well knowing how meat animals are treated at factory farms, I took the plunge and learning how to process roosters. I do not name animals that are for food. I take care of them, heck I've even brought meat pigs to the vet before if they needed it, and I enjoy them while they are alive. With roosters, I have either gotten them sexed for free from people or I have an autosexing breed, so I know who the roosters are at hatch. Roosters turn into a-holes during their teenage years, right around butchering time, so nope, I don't feel bad turning them into food after they've pecked and scratched me. I couldn't justify my uncomfortableness at taking an animal's life (that's the only hard part for me, cleaning isn't so bad) with the treatment of animals at factory farms and I frankly can not afford farmer's market meat, so it was the logical thing to do. The first time, I sure did flinch when my friend was showing me how, but I grit my teeth and learned. I didn't cry. I had already cried enough over past animals that I actually had an attachment to. So, I haven't found it all that hard to detach myself from the animals that are for the freezer and the animals that are pets. I still don't like it all that much, but this is just my experience. And if you had asked me a few years ago if I could do it, I would have (and did) say NO WAY.

 

[Chullicken]

Well in my little world we have 'Livestock' and 'Deadstock'. Some choose whatever for whatever reason. It's one of those things as a hobbyist we have to face at some point if we want to adventure forth to grow life. I don't do a lot because I just feel guilt ridden having to ship off boys over the girls, but I will keep the boys to some point of moderation as they're all just pets to me. I have a few people who just love all things living and often times adopt roosters if I get them. Sadly people feel the need to leave them on my lawn at odd hours of the night and of course I go and catch them to find them homes. So far I've been successful, I know one day I may not have such good luck but I'll face that road when I get there. My advice would if one is not emotionally prepared for this situation, than just don't do it. Grow things to the best of your ability, but grow things that the guess work has been taken out of the equation like Red Sex Links from the hatcheries. If you want to stew them, by all means raise and hatch your own. Its an enjoyable experience either way. Good luck to you and your flock!

 

[turtlelaura67]

I'm a vegetarian, boyfriend is a hunter. It works because I believe hunting is far, far more ethical than factory farming. Growing up, he was tasked with slaughtering his family's chickens - and he was the only one who could eat them. So our birds are pets and they're with us until God takes them away. I do, however, have far more respect for someone who raises and kills their own food than I do for a person who says hunting is cruel or killing your own birds is wrong, then buys meat in neat little packages at Walmart.

I had to kill a baby rabbit once. I worked for a reptile conservation group and for some reason the director had tons of rabbits. One day a baby fell out of the nest and was attacked by an adult. He was suffering, my boss wasn't around, I didn't know what to do. So I whacked him against something, or with something, I can't remember, I've blocked it out. I do remember crying about it for the rest of the day.

 

[CannedMonster]

I'm very appreciative of this thread.
I love how everyone gives their opinions and is respectful of each other as well as the difficulty of the concept.
My mother raised me to understand the importance of taking responsibility for pets and/or domestic animals and having a plan for dealing with reproduction (spay/neuter or find homes for offspring, etc.), proper nutrition, disease/injuries, shelter and all other aspects that come up.
I am new to chickens but I have already given much thought to these issues.
This Forum has such great people!!

 

[Brandi Lee]

Not sure if this'll help but you could go to your local swap meat (flea Market) and sell the roosters. .as others have stated before you'll sell them but most who'll buy are people whom would want them for the soup pots. A friend of mine wanted to be a breeder and ended up with more males than females, like she must've had nearly 40 + males no joke!! only she went a little overboard with incubating chicks and thinking she'd make money that wasn't the case and people who told her they were interested in her chicks backed out of sales and she had some nice nice chicks don't get me wrong. Her birds were exhibition quality and she even had them separated so as not to mix the birds, but again unfortunately she had bad luck. She ended up regretting breeding, the whole thing and found homes for her chickens and sold the rest at a local swap meat and to be honest it really stressed her out. So honestly if hatching chicks is what you want it's entirely up to you but if you can avoid going overboard with incubating at all costs, my poor friend really ended up regretting it. What was supposed to be an enjoyable decision turned out to be one she regretted instead. That doesn't always happen to people it's just that I experienced that with her and it was sad really. She put a lot of money into her birds and to only end up getting rid of all of them in the end.​

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I keep all my roosters in a rooster flock: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/rooster-flocks.72998/

 

[turtlelaura67]

We have one also. We had 4 boys living together, but one, Snowball, was just too much of a bully so we had to take him out. The 3 got along great, but one was killed by a possum last week (broke my heart, we did everything we could to make their run safe). So now it's just Coffee and Snowdrop. They are good friends!

 

[Kusanar]

I have been planning getting Quail primarily for eggs for a while, but, they only have a good production life of about a year, so I know that I will be hatching quite a few to keep the stock fresh. The ones I want you can tell male from female around 4 weeks, laying eggs at 6 weeks, and they are fully adult at 8 weeks, so my plan is to keep them all together for 4 weeks, separate out the "boys" and put the boys in one area and the girls in the other for the next 4 weeks, check for any eggs in the boys pen and for any rooster feathers in the girl pen for those 4 weeks, then process the extra boys at 8 weeks old and put the girls in their cages that they will live in (roll out wire bottom cages for the egg layers).

I have helped process deer that my dad has killed, but they are already dead, gutted, and cold when I first see them, so, Dad is willing to kill the birds for me, so at first, I plan to have him kill 1-2 at a time, and then I will process from a dead bird, only 1-2 at a time so that if I get emotional about messing with a dead animal that I raised, I don't have a stack of 20 birds to deal with and if I just can't do it, I can toss the bodies to my cats and let them dispose of them. Once I am comfortable with gutting and plucking or skinning them in fairly large numbers, I will work up to killing my own. I have never killed a real animal and even feel bad about killing bugs, so starting with a dead but still warm animal is how I will start so that I can work up to it.

 

[bobbi-j]

I have been planning getting Quail primarily for eggs for a while, but, they only have a good production life of about a year, so I know that I will be hatching quite a few to keep the stock fresh. The ones I want you can tell male from female around 4 weeks, laying eggs at 6 weeks, and they are fully adult at 8 weeks, so my plan is to keep them all together for 4 weeks, separate out the "boys" and put the boys in one area and the girls in the other for the next 4 weeks, check for any eggs in the boys pen and for any rooster feathers in the girl pen for those 4 weeks, then process the extra boys at 8 weeks old and put the girls in their cages that they will live in (roll out wire bottom cages for the egg layers).

I have helped process deer that my dad has killed, but they are already dead, gutted, and cold when I first see them, so, Dad is willing to kill the birds for me, so at first, I plan to have him kill 1-2 at a time, and then I will process from a dead bird, only 1-2 at a time so that if I get emotional about messing with a dead animal that I raised, I don't have a stack of 20 birds to deal with and if I just can't do it, I can toss the bodies to my cats and let them dispose of them. Once I am comfortable with gutting and plucking or skinning them in fairly large numbers, I will work up to killing my own. I have never killed a real animal and even feel bad about killing bugs, so starting with a dead but still warm animal is how I will start so that I can work up to it.

I think that's a good plan.

 

[txplowgirl]

I was raised with horses, hogs, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits. I was taught at a very early age that all animals we raised were for meat except the geese, they were raised for eggs as well as guardians for the fowl. We could be friendly with them but don't get attached.

At the age of 9 I was taught to dispatch the chickens, rabbits and ducks. Used the hatchet and stump method. Made a pet out of a runt piglet. I named him Grunt and he would come running when I called him and he'd even let me ride him at times. But I knew he wouldn't be staying. My dad told me that when the time came he'd be sold along with the rest.

I actually begged my dad for him to be 1 of the 2 hogs that dad would butcher at butchering time to put in the freezer. My thought was no one else would appreciate him as much as I had loved him. If he was gonna be slaughtered and ate then he should be with us. Dad agreed thankfully.

Anyway, I would rather dispatch my own animals because I know that they will be respected and not be mistreated during the process.