What would you do if...

[ourlittleflock]

you hatched 6 eggs and 5 are males?

so a little background.. I have 6x splash cochins that are 6-7 weeks old.. they are filling out wonderful - they are form show lines, I believe.. but 5 (I can confirm 4 are cockerels) - I don't want to just sell them to early because I want to keep them to see who turns out the best but I know i can't keep a 5 to 1 ratio.

Question - so do you have a better chance at selling the cockerels when they are younger or just hold and raise as long as I can (meaning when they start fighting) and then pick the best cockerel and sell the rest

here is a pic of 1x at 5 weeks old (look at the feet feathers)

 

[suzeqf]

if they were show prospect puppies(don't know anything about show chickens) i would hold them until they were about 8-12 weeks old and judge their confirmation and pick the one i wanted to keep and sell the others

 

[ourlittleflock]

anyone else??

 

[gryeyes]

I'm just throwing in my alternate universe experience for y'all to laugh at. I've been incubating and hatching (purchased, shipped) eggs since August, pretty non-stop, and it appears I am quite good at hatching out cockerels. Because they are all my babies - I HATCHED THEM, they kicked out of eggs before my very eyes - I haven't gotten rid of a single rooster. It is SO hard to give up any of my chickens. I have managed to shave a few off my flock numbers by giving some BYCer friends some pullets, and I did sell 3 cochin chicks before I could sex 'em, so there's probably a rooster in that threesome, but other than that, I just add to my flock.

They don't fight; there was one challenge to the dominant roo which resulted only in some missing feathers and a bruised ego from the CHALLENGER. Nothing since. And I have a lot of roosters in my flock.

They kinda have their own little harems within the flock, which Carl the dominant rooster has access for mounting, but no other rooster.