What do you do with them all?

[HickoryHollow]

Ok, here is a question I am sure will have as many different answers as there are responses. I have my first batch of eggs in the incubator (day 2). The is pretty exciting and I think it will be really fun. I am also hoping to get a broody soon just to watch her take care of her brood and experience the who thing.

All of that being said.....that adds up to a lot of peeps. Not near as many as some of you with larger incubators, but still, a lot of peeps. What are some of your "outlets" to sell them? What about rooster peeps? Where do all those peeps go?

At this point, I would love to get a little bigger bator and get more serious about it, but What will I ever do with them all?

anyone? anyone?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Roosters are great on the grill before 12 weeks of age, broiler cooking to about 16 weeks and slow roasted with cover there after. Other than that they are for breeding and old rooster and hens make great soup (don't let water come to boil when cooking meat, making stock) or gumbo or any dish calling for moist slow cooking. I've yet to try coq au vin, it's the two day recipe I never seem to plan for.

If you hath a lot you can sell straight run chicks. You'll get good at picking out the better birds as chicks and can sell a bunch of the rest straight run. I'm pretty good at sexing my birds so this year will sell extra birds as pullets with guaranty of replacing any cockerels I made mistake on. Of course as I say that it means we'll be cursed with a abnormally large percentage of cockerels with no place to house them all.

Excepting exceptional birds I try to sell as many year old hens as I can to keep a good turn over of pullets each year. If a bird hits over two years old and still here without any remarkable traits it goes to soup before the poor winter laying and molt.

 

[HickoryHollow]

If you hath a lot you can sell straight run chicks.

With all the Tractor Supply, Rural King, feed store chicks on the market, is there still plenty of market to sell chicks and pullets? The stores around here that get chicks in, of course only get them in the spring. They are all about out of chicks now. Do chicks sell year round from the homestead fairly well? Is there a time of the year I shouldn't incubate any due to no market? As with most of us, there is only so much space here to keep pullets, etc.

I am thinking about buiding a little nursery with nice permant brooder space, etc. But I don't want to get into it if I won't be able to sell any. Right now I have all Golden Buffs, including the rooster. I think I am going to stay with them for a while anyway. Maybe expand to different breeds later.

 

[davemonkey]

I've seen chicks and pullets offered on our local craigslist year-round and turnover seems to be high. That tells me that there are always people looking to buy egg-layers. The problem is finding people who are willing to buy bird for meat. Most folks I run into who don't mind butchering a bird already have bird for that purpose. The potential buyers, then, are mostly folks who don't want to butcher a bird, and don't want another Rooster either. So, you almost have to sell your chicks as straight-run, or butcher your cockerels and sell the meat that way, or eat tehm yourself...or give away the boys for free to whomever wants them, which means you have to "pretend" they will thenceforcth be treated humanely.

I'll tell you this much, a bird that you raise, ESPECIALLY if you free-pasture it, will taste a whole bunch better than a grocery store bird, even if it is smaller in size.