What do you do with all the chicks?

[ChicksR4Me]

I have never incubated any eggs. I started reading this site because I wanted to raise some chickens for eggs. I received 23 2 week old chicks from the local zoo for free. They have chicks donated to the zoo for a chick display and when they get too big they give them away so that is how I ended up with chickens. 21 of them are female and i'm now getting 18-20 eggs per day! They even started laying earlier than I expected, 19 weeks! Everything I know about taking care of them I have learned here on BYC. Thank you all soo very much for all the valuable information. But now after reading about how you all love to incubate eggs I feel myself wanting to do it too. The only thing is..... what do you do with all those babies when they grow up? Do you sell them or let them grow up enough to eat them? I don't know how brave I would be when it would come time to butcher them.

 

[Mahonri]

We will be giving some away.

We may try to sell some.

I'll be keep the best lookers of the Marans, Ameraucanas and Faverolles.

I NEED MORE ROOM and we are going to be building some pens soon I hope!!

 

[Chickenaddict]

I keep a few, sell a few, maybe give a few away. I don't have the heart to butcher a chicken so i keep mine for eggs and pets. If you would like to have them for meat you could always look into having someone else process them for you.

 

[WalkingWolf]

Your chicks are lucky, a lot of zoos use the chicks for reptile food.

 

[ginbart]

I have 14 chicks that are 2 weeks old. I'm saving some of them for more eggs. Some I'm giving away and I also have 22 in the bator now, I'm going to sell them and keep some of them too. I don't ever seam to have enought eggs to sell and keep for ourselfs to eat.

 

[jrhbull]

I sell all my hatched chicks