Dear Friendly Farmer,
I sent my husband to the local pet store to get some dog food in Mid-March and he came home with six fluffy and adorable baby chicks. We thought they were all hens, but one has started to crow! How do I find a new home for this rooster before my neighbors want to kill me? Help!
Signed,
That Crow’s Gotta Go
Dear Crow,
Oh no! Let’s figure out your poultry predicament. Baby chicks are hatched out and “sexed”—determine if they are roosters or hens— at the hatchery by very experienced sexers. It’s a very difficult job to determine if a tiny tiny baby chick is a male or a female. Their success rate is great (85-95 percent), but not perfect. So even if you ordered pullets (baby female chickens) and not cockerels (baby male chickens) instead of “straight run” chicks where you get what you get and you don’t get upset, every once in a while, you’re going to end up with a mistake. So, what now that you’ve fed and loved him for several months? The kids have fallen in love and he might even have a name that’s hopefully gender neutral.
You can try, but it can be very hard to find a new home for your young roo. Most farms and poultry keepers have enough roosters in their own flocks as the optimum ratio of hens to roos is about 10 to 1 depending on everyone’s temperament.
It can be hard to hear, but the best solution is to fatten him up. He’ll have one bad day and you’ll have dinner. Processing a chicken for dinner wasn’t uncommon for homesteaders in the early 1900s, and you can do it too! All it involves is a sharp knife and a YouTube video and your cock will be in your crockpot in no time.
Notice that I told you to put him in your crock pot, not in your oven. Traditional laying breed chickens are not bred for being meaty like today’s meat-bird breeds. Layer breeds take a low and slow cooking method to yield a tender, tasty result. Make sure to use all the parts as well. Your rooster’s feet make delicious bone broth and your dog will love the treat of the gizzard, liver, heart and kidney.
Kudos to your husband for starting a backyard flock. Chickens can be a fantastic addition to even the smallest households by eating up kitchen scraps that are otherwise destined for the landfill and turning those scraps into eggs.
Yours truly,
Friendly Farmer
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