What to do with roosters?

[chickens really]

Hi all,

I am part of a class at my high school where we are raising chickens to provide eggs for out cafeteria. We have a flock of 55 birds and one is for sure a rooster and we suspect that two others are. They are around 3 months old now and have just been released into their coop and run. There are two potential problems we have with roosters. 1 It would be very bad PR for the chicken program if a student cracked open a hard boiled egg to find a chick embryo. 2 Our school is located in an area where the surrounding residents do not like noise and roosters make a lot of that. Our coop is sort of in a legal gray area when it comes to needing or not needing a permit and having negative attention drawn to it won't help. So with those constraints in mind what should we do? We all really like the look of the rooster and if possible would like to keep him around. I have researched caponizing but all the tutorials I have found are on birds that are much younger and smaller so I am not confident in trying that on our rooster. Also I have heard that caponizing changes the appearance of a rooster is this true on older birds? If we have no other option we are ok with eating it but would rather not. Do you guys have any solutions that would solve both problems and or have you caponized older roosters?


Here he is in all his glory. You can see why we'd like to keep him.

Thanks in advance!

Keep him around till he or if he becomes to much?

Pretty Guy....

As far as the eggs go....As long as eggs are collected, their will not be an embryo in the egg.........


Cheers!

 

[rebrascora]

I believe that caponizing at that age is very risky because there is a major blood vessel very close to the testes. I'm not sure how humane it is either.
Personally I wouldn't call that a handsome bird, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I agree that cockerels need to be managed correctly by people who have some experience and at this early stage in your project, they are too much of a liability in respect of possible injury and noise. No point in jeopardising the project for the sake of a few mixed breed males that may be quite personable now but will almost certainly change once their hormones kick in, in a couple of months time. Young males mature before the pullets and without a mature rooster or hens to keep them in check, they will harass and possibly injure some of the pullets. Your flock will be a whole lot happier without them.

I also think your project is to be applauded. I hope the school has a vegetable plot too, so that the chicken manure can be composted and used to grow more food for the canteen.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[AllynTal]

I believe that caponizing at that age is very risky because there is a major blood vessel very close to the testes.....

Well, there is a major blood vessel there no matter what age the bird is.