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Author Topic: Too many cockerels  (Read 11091 times)

CameronS

  • Joined Aug 2009
  • North East Fife
Re: Too many cockerels
« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2011, 01:35:59 pm »
If they weren't bantams i would happily have taken one from you, as i also am in fife.

sorry i could help, i'll keep my ears peeled for you incase i hear anything

hughesy

  • Joined Feb 2010
  • Anglesey
Re: Too many cockerels
« Reply #16 on: July 29, 2011, 04:32:42 pm »
I think people who keep poultry really need to face up to this issue. Either just keep hens or be prepared to cull some cockerels. It's a choice that needs making at the outset, not when you've got the cockerels and don't know what to do with them.

DJ_Chook

  • Joined Jun 2009
  • Mid Wales
  • Chicken mad, nothing else just chickens.
Re: Too many cockerels
« Reply #17 on: July 29, 2011, 04:53:36 pm »
I think people who keep poultry really need to face up to this issue. Either just keep hens or be prepared to cull some cockerels.

We eat them. Skin not pluck, breasts and legs & thighs off. Rest goes in bin. Great in the slow cooker.
Chicken nutter extraordinaire.

hughesy

  • Joined Feb 2010
  • Anglesey
Re: Too many cockerels
« Reply #18 on: July 29, 2011, 10:19:58 pm »
We eat them too. I actually quite enjoy plucking a chicken. Killing them's not great but as soon as they stop flapping they're just meat. They have never been pets to us though.

geebee

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • N,E.Fife
Re: Too many cockerels
« Reply #19 on: July 29, 2011, 10:59:10 pm »
well I have faced up to this issue,it's not a question of not knowing what to do with them - if no one wants them I shall keep them, as pets or I may possibly get someone to kill & pluck them, my choice.  It's not imperative that you kill something just because it is male.

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: Too many cockerels
« Reply #20 on: July 30, 2011, 12:00:04 am »

We're in a similar situation, in that we now have two adult cockerels, two just coming of age, and another seven which are just off heat. It's just my luck really that out of twelve chicks hatched this year, nine have turned out to be boys!  ::)

I suspect you'll have trouble later on if you decide to keep them all though. Our twelve girls hardly get a moments peace just now, with four boys in the flock. However, one of the young ones is going to be Sunday lunch, and the other is going to a colleague, so we'll be back to just two by next week (and I'm sure the Girls will all breathe a sigh of relief!!).

I used to think that in commercial set-ups, the girls were kept for eggs, and the boys for meat. I realise now of course that this is totally wrong, and that the boys are killed immediately. So, although I won't particularly enjoy killing the excess cockerels, at least ours have had a decent six months or so of free-ranging first, rather than being bumped off as day olds.
"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

 

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