What do you do with cockerels that you can’t keep?

[HeathenHavenHomestead]

My best friends dad is a milkman in California. Literally delivering milk to front doors like the olden days.

We don’t have milkmen in US.

 

[MickWithChicks]

It seems most responses are giving you what you aren’t asking which is “eat him” your only other option is to find a sanctuary or take him to market and hope a nice family comes along that wants a Roo for their ladies.

To be fair, a LOT more people are able to keep hens than those that can keep roosters. There are far too many free roosters on the market to realistically rehome them unless they're a sought after breed with excellent features.

I understand that they want to move them on to not be eaten. I've moved on roosters to people who were "not going to eat them" only to post on Gumtree (Australia's answer to Craigslist) under a different name looking to "rehome" them.

Chances are, anyone who is willing to rehome your free rooster is probably going to eat it. It's a free meal afterall. I'd rather donate to my local zoo -- they care for animals. They have a gas chamber that kills the roosters in the most humane way possible (without fear for the bird too!), and they desperately need whole birds (read: feathers on, guts and gizzards intact) for their crocodile and alligator ponds. I'd much prefer that fate for my excess roosters rather than dumping them next to a creek or giving them up to some rando on the classifieds who may or may not kill them humanely.

 

[Feath3rDust3r]

To be honest....as soon as the rooster leaves your property it's probably going to be dinner....I know a bunch of people who say they're going to keep them and then eat them the next day. If you can't keep all the roosters you raise , or even any of them just make sure they get to enjoy their life as long as it is. I'm sure they'd prefer a nice quick clean death over being hunted and torn apart first!

 

[Lynn Woehrle]

We have feed stores that take them, we pay $3 to them and then they sell them. Also a garden and pet store take them. We saw one rooster that was very tame at this store and then two days later we saw that rooster in a mans truck--he was his pet

 

[TsBurks]

Where are you located?

Oakland, TN – It’s about 30 mins northeast of Memphis TN...

 

[Butchers Wife]

I keep my family fed with free roosters I collect off Craigslist. I collected an assortment just last month. 5 that were already 4 or 5 months old and 15 hatchlings up to 3 or 4 weeks old. I've got the oldest on fresh grass and the youngsters are in brooders in the barn with their little screen rooms attached. I'm also using a fenced in trampoline frame to extend my brooder yard for some flighty teens. The oldest are already big enough to call it done. I promise I will dispatch them with more compassion than if I leave them to fight for hens that they're never going to get. I don't even have chicken hens. We just prefer duck eggs. I can only give them 1,000 square feet of grass, fenced in for protection from stray cats, foxes, coyotes... and that's just not enough space for roosters who will seriously play King of the Hill for keeps from dawn to dusk after they gain their cock-a-doodle-do's. But it's a moveable fence and it's just about time to give some of the youngsters a turn out in the sun on a fresh patch of tall grass. Honestly, I've never even had to store one in the freezer. Just field to fridge to table all summer long. As soon as I get a brooder cleaned out I'll be 'shopping' for more. And just for the record, I always tell chicken owners my true intentions. There's always more available and I have no desire to offend anyone. I can always buy chicken at the store (and I have an incubator). Would you do the same if your backyard was zoned agricultural? Or would you still shop at the supermarket for every bite you eat? I just figure every $ I save is money I can spend to feed my livestock, which I eat or sell for more money for more feed. I have a 50' × 50' garden as well, mostly full of peas to feed the ducks. It might be a vicious circle but it's my circle.

 

[3KillerBs]

I keep my family fed with free roosters I collect off Craigslist. I collected an assortment just last month. 5 that were already 4 or 5 months old and 15 hatchlings up to 3 or 4 weeks old. I've got the oldest on fresh grass and the youngsters are in brooders in the barn with their little screen rooms attached. I'm also using a fenced in trampoline frame to extend my brooder yard for some flighty teens. The oldest are already big enough to call it done. I promise I will dispatch them with more compassion than if I leave them to fight for hens that they're never going to get. I don't even have chicken hens. We just prefer duck eggs. I can only give them 1,000 square feet of grass, fenced in for protection from stray cats, foxes, coyotes... and that's just not enough space for roosters who will seriously play King of the Hill for keeps from dawn to dusk after they gain their cock-a-doodle-do's. But it's a moveable fence and it's just about time to give some of the youngsters a turn out in the sun on a fresh patch of tall grass. Honestly, I've never even had to store one in the freezer. Just field to fridge to table all summer long. As soon as I get a brooder cleaned out I'll be 'shopping' for more. And just for the record, I always tell chicken owners my true intentions. There's always more available and I have no desire to offend anyone. I can always buy chicken at the store (and I have an incubator). Would you do the same if your backyard was zoned agricultural? Or would you still shop at the supermarket for every bite you eat? I just figure every $ I save is money I can spend to feed my livestock, which I eat or sell for more money for more feed. I have a 50' × 50' garden as well, mostly full of peas to feed the ducks. It might be a vicious circle but it's my circle.

Welcome to BYC.

That sounds like a great system you've got going. If I weren't going to eat my own extra cockerels I'd like to see them in the hands of someone like you who would give them a good life until their time to transition to the table comes.

 

[Butchers Wife]

Nice! I would love 10 acres but most of it would need to be wooded... it’s already so annoying mowing the 2 acres I have!

We only have grass where we need to walk and I'm in the process of killing that off by encouraging monoculture of pretty weeds. Clover stays green when the grass is burnt out. So far no one in my family has noticed. The grass where we don't need to walk is food for everything but us.

 

[MickWithChicks]

As soon as I get a brooder cleaned out I'll be 'shopping' for more. And just for the record, I always tell chicken owners my true intentions. There's always more available and I have no desire to offend anyone.

That's the important part I think. So many people lie about it and say "they'll free range over my 90 acres with creeks etc" - but don't tell you they plan on eating them.

My wife won't eat anything we raise here (she's near enough to becoming vegetarian, so I don't want to push it!), so processing them here isn't really an option. I'd love to eat them like I did as a kid, but short of that I'm not one to give someone else a free meal from my hard work (except for the needy, of course). So, I give to local zoos to feed to their carnivorous animals; they need them whole (guts and entrails, gizzards and beaks) and I have what they're looking for!

 

[CrazyCochin]

We keep every single one of them, all 10, and they all each have their own pens where they reside. We have 2 1/2 acres, so we have built many pens over the seven years we’ve been raising chickens, and started raising ducks later on.