how do you cull?

[Oregon Blues]

If you are trying to raise top quality birds, you simply need to remove the less SOP ones from your breeding flock.

There are many ways to do that. Put them in your freezer. Just about the age where you realize they are roosters is just about a good time to invite them to dinner.

Put an ad on Craigslist and sell them or give them away. If you don't want to eat them, someone else does. Young laying age hens sell very well.

You could keep them and pen them separately so their genes don't get into your incubator.

There are several humane ways to kill day old chicks with birth defects, and you'd better be prepared to do that if you intend to raise birds.

 

[Oregon Blues]

By the way, if you are raising top quality purebred birds, then you will find that there is a demand for your excess quality roosters. People will buy them as breeders for their own flock.

I'm not talking about the culls, the ones who don't meet the SOP, but your excellent quality roosters that are show or breeding quality. If you are any good at breeding, you will get a lot more quality roosters than you can use in your own breeding program.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote:
Ok at first I thought you meant to put them in the freezer live and let them freeze to death. You didn't mean that right? So that brings me to my original question.. how do you kill them? Just didn't grow up with farm animals and I have run searches on culling but everyone talks about what birds to cull, not how to actually kill them if you need to. Do people chop off their heads with an ax on a stump like in movies? lol

I am sure this is a dumb question. lol

 

[ParadiseFoundFarm]

Dear Christie Rhae:
You really are going to have a hard time of this. I feel your pain.
Chicks shouldn't be put down unless they are deformed and/or suffering. You cannot tell, on Wheaten Ameraucanas at least, what they will turn out to be for quite a long time. I have had to dispatch a chick.
I asked this same question to many people. Often the answer was something for my benefit and not the chick's.
I was crying the day I drove home thinking about the baby, defensless and trusting.
some had said drown it.
some had said to wrap it in a towel and freeze it.
Some to wring its neck
I decided that I wanted the quickest, least traumatic death possible for the chick and came up with this solution:
I gave it a kiss. I held it's body in one hand and it's head in another on a cutting board in the sink. My husband sliced it's neck with a very sharp knife. I sent the husband away...then I waited without moving, until I was sure I would not see anything I didn't want to, then put it in a bag in the trash.

Adults: Follow Frugal's link on butchering your own meat from this forum: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=109583

You are not planning on showing and if you do, you will not have much competition, if any. Keep the good and great ones - don't forget the ones with the great personalities. I culled one I still regret - not a perfect bird by far - but WOW what a perfect personality he had!
If you sell your roosters, will they not end up in some one elses' stew pot? Will they be humanely dispatched as you would do it with care and concern knowing you gave then a better life than most chickens ever had?

Edited to add this: "There are no dumb questions" Once you stop asking questions, you stop learning. Now that would be dumb.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote:
Thank you Denise! I am probably over thinking all of this and should just wait till a circumstance actually came up where it was necessary to cull. I like to be prepared.
I would love to show but being in Hawaii pretty much limits me in that area. So I will just be satisfied with trying to raise birds that come close to the standards.

P.S. my incubator is supposed to arrive this week. We shall see...

 

[JoePa]

You can drown a rooster too - put it into a killing cone and then stick it's head into a 5 gallon bucket for a short time - the rooster feels no pain and you don't have to get all bloody doing it - it's easy - I'm talking from experience -

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote:
oh....heck...no.... lol
Just read that link, saw the pics. I have been bouncing around the idea of growing our own chickens for meat. I really don't like thinking about how commercial meat birds are grown. Well let's just put that idea to rest right now. "Christie, we are not going to butcher our own chickens....cuz it's gross." omg... I need to find somewhere to buy organic chicken or something....

 

[crazyhen]

If you can not put chicks down please do not breed. If like me you have a tender heart it would be constant stress. I get to caring about a chick and can not do it. Don't get me wrong I have dispatched a roo or two. I have cleanned and eaten said roo. they were mean ones. but my chicks and hens are another subject entirely. good luck. gloria Jean

 

[silkiechicken]

Quote:
Yeah.. that...

Kill with conviction. Don't hesitate, fiddle around, hum and haw. Just grab your tool of choice, be it a knife, be it your hands, and just get the job done. You owe it to the animal to do the need properly, fast, and then to make sure the body does not go to waste if they can be consumed.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Oh don't worry about me. I can do anything that I HAVE to. If my children were hungry I would make chick-kabobs. Lol!! Kidding. I can do it, just won't like it.