What do you do with you extra roosters? (POLL)

[cubalaya]

eat them of course. there are a few exceptional roosters that we sell that don't fit or no longer fit in our breeding projects. we process delawares at 18 weeks, australorps at 20 and cubalayas at 24 weeks. if you are going to breed and hatch chickens, you need to cull. if you can't do that then you need another hobby.

 

[Ridgerunner]

when I say "extra roos" I mean roosters that you hatched or have that you can not keep.

I'm surprised that the results of your poll show that nearly 70% eat them. According to a poll Nifty did a while back, less than 10% of the forum members raise chickens for meat. But you are right, if you hatch chicks, you need a plan to get rid of the excess. It may not only be roosters. The number of pullets can add up pretty quickly too.

I raise mine to eat and I only hatch what I can eat, roosters and pullets. So I control my hatching. If you have breeding program going, you have to hatch a lot of chicks, so that becomes harder. You can only eat so much chicken and it becomes expensive to feed them to butcher size or to an age where you can clearly determine sex. And some people just have a hatching addiction, where they just hatch. A lot of people don't eat their chickens. That's their choice.

Some people kill and dispose of excess chickens. Some may compost the bodies, just bury them, feed them to other animals, or, if they own the land or have permission, dump the bodies in the wilderness so wild animals can eat them. I'm sure there are other options to dispose of the carcasses.

Some people sell them or give them away. Craigslist or a note on the feed store bulletin board are possible ways, but there are others. Some people have a regular buyer. Once you sell them, you lose control of them. Most will probably be eaten, but at least someone will get a use out of them.

Some of the more exotic uses for excess chickens is to provide them to a zoo so they can feed their meat-eating animals or maybe provide chicks to a friend that has a pet snake. Maybe provide carcasses to someone that is making organic compost.

You are right. Half the chicks that hatch will be roosters and you have to have a plan.

 

[bobbi-j]

Ridgerunner - Maybe people see "raising chickens for meat" and "eating excess roos" differently. I know it's kind of the same, but maybe they think of specifically hatching and feeding a bird to eat it within a few months in a different way than processing extra roosters as a way of management. I know - I just said the same thing two different ways. I'll quit repeating myself now.

 

[galanie]

Ridgerunner - Maybe people see "raising chickens for meat" and "eating excess roos" differently. I know it's kind of the same, but maybe they think of specifically hatching and feeding a bird to eat it within a few months in a different way than processing extra roosters as a way of management. I know - I just said the same thing two different ways. I'll quit repeating myself now.

That was my thought when I read Ridgerunner's post too.

 

[StarLover21]

eat them of course. there are a few exceptional roosters that we sell that don't fit or no longer fit in our breeding projects. we process delawares at 18 weeks, australorps at 20 and cubalayas at 24 weeks. if you are going to breed and hatch chickens, you need to cull. if you can't do that then you need another hobby.

That' s really not true....why should I kill innocent chickens?

 

[cubalaya]

i said cull which doesn't always mean kill.

 

[bobbi-j]

eat them of course. there are a few exceptional roosters that we sell that don't fit or no longer fit in our breeding projects. we process delawares at 18 weeks, australorps at 20 and cubalayas at 24 weeks. if you are going to breed and hatch chickens, you need to cull. if you can't do that then you need another hobby.

Quote:

That' s really not true....why should I kill innocent chickens?

It's a personal choice, of course, but not everyone has alot of room to keep every chicken they hatch. If you have extras, you need to cull to make room for more. Note: cull does not necessarily mean kill. It simply means to remove from the flock. Some people cull by selling or giving away their chickens, some people cull a sick bird by killing it, some people cull extras by butchering them and eating them. If you breed and hatch, you either need lots of room, or you need to cull. It's that simple.

 

[groundpecker]

I mostly sell my extra roos. It usually does not take over 2-3 weeks to sell them. Some people love to hear roosters crow and/or eat them.

 

[Frithest]

We got our first chickens this summer, a straight run of 8. Turned out 50/50, so we ended up with four roos to deal with. Here in the city (Seattle), we can't have roos, but we were really attached to them. One went to a breeder quite young to improve her blood-line (!), two went to a rooster rescue (from whence they were either adopted or taken for dinner - we didn't ask), and we gave the last one to a rancher in Oregon that we get our beef from. His family keeps chickens and his son got our BLRW roo as a birthday present. It turned out really well. Two lived, two might have become dinner. But it was stressful and sad enough that I don't think we'll get straight run chicks again. The day they started crowing struck fear of the neighbors into me, and we had to hustle to get our adoption plan going.
When we made the plan to get straight run chicks, it was because I didn't want to get sexed chicks in a box from out of state. There is a nice local breeder that we visited but who can't sex chicks. We chose our breeds from them, and ordered the chicks to be hatched for us. I felt a deep sense of responsibility for the chicks, who were incubated and hatched at my command, and before we even got them, I talked with my son about what we would do with the boys. He agreed that these ones we would not eat, but it would be ok if someone else did. By the time it came to send them away, months later, it was pretty hard to think of them as dinner, so the fact that at least two of them may live long and happy lives is a real relief.
What's interesting for me is that now I think I could actually raise a couple of meat birds for us to eat, and process them. Knowing that is their fate would make it different raising them. There IS a difference, I think.

 

[twisted troy]

If a new roo has qualities I like I keep it otherwise I make chicken and dumplings or fry it up. It's not hard to get over run with birds if you have 1 rooster.