this morning they went.....

[njones]

Just need to vent a bit here. For the first time ever I had to take 6 of my roosters to get butchered. I thought if I didn't name them, I wouldn't get attached to them and therefore it wouldn't bother me to butcher them. Boy was I wrong. It was very hard. I really got attached to them, but I could not keep that many roos. Please tell me that it gets easier. DH wants me to raise more meat birds and keep a few hens for eggs. It has not been a good day so far.

 

[vfem]

It does not get easier, and that is what keeps us human! If it ever got easy I would worry.

 

[scooter147]

My suggestion would be cornish x's, you will be so HAPPY to send them to be processed when they are ready and they are basically clones of one another very hard to tell apart and IMHO absoulutely no personality at all. (other may disagree).
You can still get laying hens with your meat order.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

It helps me to think of them as food right from the start. I cannot yet dispatch any of my older laying hens, nor the roosters I keep as flock husbands. But the chicks I hatch are considered food the moment they sprout their red combs. I think of them like the produce I raise in the garden. I'll tend carefully to their needs as they grow, admire their beauty, take pride in their plumpness, anticipate the harvest as they ripen. I know logically there isn't room in the world for them all to remain, and that they're enjoying their lives to the fullest while they're here. They will be handled with kindness & care right up to the end, which is much more than any other predator would do. And they'll provide nourishment for me & my family, which is an honorable service for a bird to provide.

 

[my first peepers]

I agree about the CornishX! I can't wait to get rid of them. My 5 year old named them collectively "Chompy Eats" and that is what they have remained.
On the other hand they are such mutants and grow at such an alarming rate that they seem uncomfortable and I kind of feel sorry for them. It makes me unsure that I would want them again but that much easier to take them to their doom because I do want to put them out of their misery.