What to do with Roosters....

[aart]

Her method was to look at the wing feathers. Something like pullets only have 1 row and cockerels have 2 rows or something like that.

That is only accurate with a few breeds...and often misused.
Maybe take the cockerels back to her

because they are sweet boys

They are all sweet when little chickies.....
.....it's later when reality hits with pterodactyl like horror.

 

[Folly's place]

Feather sexing only works if the chicks are bred to carry that trait; otherwise it's irrelevant. She's learned to sound good, but not so informed. PLEASE don't plan to hatch chicks until you can deal with all those cockerels!!! You will hatch 50% or more males every year. Mary

 

[song of joy]

Feather sexing only works if the chicks are bred to carry that trait; otherwise it's irrelevant. She's learned to sound good, but not so informed. PLEASE don't plan to hatch chicks until you can deal with all those cockerels!!! You will hatch 50% or more males every year. Mary

You're so right about the "or more" part! I've gotten hatches that are 2/3 male, but I'm learning to recognize the cockerels earlier and cull them earlier as nobody around here seems to want free cockerels. It's definitely not easy, but I guess it's just part of maintaining a well-balanced breeding flock.

 

[ChickyMama229]

The one aggressive cockerel spent the day and one night by himself. We put him back in to see if he was still aggressive. He didn't lay a peck on anybody!! So the thing worked, he is now scared to be by himself, so now we have 2 friendly cockerels! the only problem now is the neighbor, if he would be bothered by their crowing. hoping that he won't be, and maybe we can drop off some fresh eggs too....

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

That is our plan. We are going to build a coop and run for each rooster and we already have one for the hens. If we want chicks in the future, we will have the roo.

Instead of having two pens for the roosters, you could make a rooster flock. If you want more info about rooster flocks, read this: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/rooster-flocks.72998/

 

[ChickyMama229]

Instead of having two pens for the roosters, you could make a rooster flock. If you want more info about rooster flocks, read this: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/rooster-flocks.72998/

Wow!! That is genius!! It would save a lot of work and money that would go into making 2 separate pens. That would totally work, the roosters we have have been together their whole lives. So I'm sure they would get along. I just need to talk to our neighbor about the crowing situation. Thank you so much for this idea!