What to do with male chicks ?

[Mike Fronczak]

We are incubating some eggs for the first time, they are from our Rhode Island Reds. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the male chicks. We bought some straight run of another breed last year, ended up with all roosters, we slaughtered them because they got aggressive, but the carcasses really weren't all that meaty. I know of a farm that raises their Black Astrlops (I'm sure I spelled it wrong) cockerials as fryer chickens. The way I figure I have several options, kill off the male chicks (dont really like the idea of this option), put chicks on craigslist for free to see if someone wants for growing out, try growing out using a meat bird feed (leaning toward trying this). Looking for imput/ideas.

 

[Fred's Hens]

This is the "issue" with most smaller bodied, "dual purpose" breeds. This is the reason the industry split. The egg industry went with sex links for layers and commercial broilers for the meat bird. It is a conundrum. Gotta have a goal and plan before hatching out a bunch of cockerels, I suppose. We don't have any issue in raising them for fryers. Some folks do.

My only guidance, moving forward is to follow the path of industry, and go one way or the way. But, if your future includes hatching more dual purpose type birds, you'll have to develop a plan. There really is just so many people who want to feed out these kinds of cockerels. The local market can get saturated. Sometimes on Craigs there are folks who will pick them up and pay you a $1 for them.

 

[Mrs. K]

If you want to continue this, you really need a dual purpose breed.Delaware is a breed I am trying this spring! They are a dual purpose breed, and were developed shortly before the big split mentioned above. Right now, I have some leghorns, and while they are laying machines, there really is not much too them.

They are suppose to be excellent layers and very good meat birds. I ordered 25, planning on slightly more than half being roo's. I will butcher those for home use.

MrsK