How do you part with your cockerels

[hammers]

I have 9 chicks - 4 are 3½weeks and 5 are 1 week or so old. I've established that at least 5 are female, 2 are boys and the other I can't quite be sure.
But anyway, should I wait to have them culled, or should I part with them now?
I can't keep them because we already have one and the noise will be too much of a nuisance.
My colleague who's already helped me out with one before (I can't do it), has offered again. I know they will end up in his oven afterward. So I don't know whether to tell him he can have the first 2 now and he can raise them until they've reached maturity if he wants to, or what...

And there's also the question of... What if I'm wrong and they're girls?

 

[JP1]

Was on a farm park last weekend and they breed Norfolk Greys. The boys as soon as they can be sexed are despatched and feed the kookaburras

 

[Treemover]

Can I ask a stupid question, what are they like to eat? Not as a chick, but reared?

 

[Guleesh]

Can I ask a stupid question, what are they like to eat? Not as a chick, but reared?

Taste a bit like chicken

 

[primmiemoo]

Someone I know rears the males to about 6 months (I know nothing about poultry, so don't know why, but guess they become a nuisance from then on), whereupon they become coq au vin, and other good dishes.

 

[Guleesh]

Can I ask a stupid question, what are they like to eat? Not as a chick, but reared?

Seriously though,

We've hatched a few chicks every spring/summer for the last few years, we just raise them all together for anything between 3 and 6 months, (we find they grow faster in summer) hens get added to the layers then cockerels get fed a bit of wheat or whatever until they feel heavy enough to be worth eating.

They are a little tougher than the tasteless white mush that can be bought at the supermarket but the flavour is great.

 

[Wurzeetoo]

Can I ask a stupid question, what are they like to eat? Not as a chick, but reared?

I asked a friend recently who had the same problem she said they tasted like a stronger version of chicken. I am probably wrong but isn’t a capon the name for the plucked bird?

 

[Treemover]

I'm sure years ago, farmers ate the cockerels and kept the hens? I always fancied getting a few hens, but Id rather keep and eat my own, than buy in something that has been raised in a shed for 30p.

 

[Will 1594]

I asked a friend recently who had the same problem she said they tasted like a stronger version of chicken. I am probably wrong but isn’t a capon the name for the plucked bird?

No you can chemically sterilize them used to be a pellet ,"back o "t" lug sort of fashion ,or surgically remove testes ,bit like making a bull calf into a bullock , Grannies era ,they used to keep hundreds of chickens ,and talked of caponizing them ,when we where in short pants
Google it ,???

 

[Woolless]

Our old neighbour had two 'pullets' that turned out to be cockerels and in turn went rogue and started attacking people. I was called in to bump them (landing net and air rifle). The meat is noticeably darker and more like a game bird.

 

[Wurzeetoo]

No you can chemically sterilize them used to be a pellet ,"back o "t" lug sort of fashion ,or surgically remove testes ,bit like making a bull calf into a bullock , Grannies era ,they used to keep hundreds of chickens ,and talked of caponizing them ,when we where in short pants
Google it ,???

Deary me every days a learning day but still got sympathy pains over the rib cage cut and slotted spoon

 

[spin cycle]

No you can chemically sterilize them used to be a pellet ,"back o "t" lug sort of fashion ,or surgically remove testes ,bit like making a bull calf into a bullock , Grannies era ,they used to keep hundreds of chickens ,and talked of caponizing them ,when we where in short pants
Google it ,???

don't think caponizing been legal for decades

Was on a farm park last weekend and they breed Norfolk Greys. The boys as soon as they can be sexed are despatched and feed the kookaburras

so the answer to op is buy a kookaburras

 

[Guleesh]

Deary me every days a learning day but still got sympathy pains over the rib cage cut and slotted spoon

I tried to google it but I think I must have used Bing by accident, no need for a spoon you use a straw with a horse hair to make a lasso....

 

[uztrac]

If my memory serves me correctly a capon is a caponised male chicken. The base of the skull was injected with a "Stibestrol" pellet that caused the bird to take on female atributes etc. Pretty sure all illegal now as this was in the 1950's and thereabouts.

 

[Kidds]

My gran had a shed full of capons.

 

[sandy2210]

wife always orders a capon from the butcher at xmas so what is she getting?

 

[Lili]

wife always orders a capon from the butcher at xmas so what is she getting?

Technically unless it's an imported bird it's not been caponised, just a large cockerel. Ask the butcher next time.

 

[Old Boar]

My gran had a shed full of capons.

Was it the wood shed?

wife always orders a capon from the butcher at xmas so what is she getting?

Conned.

 

[Old Boar]

Wait until the chicks are around 6 weeks old and the difference is easy to spot. The males will have a bigger comb and usually different colouring on the neck feathers. Leave them to grow and about a month before you want them for the pot, get them in somewhere and give them poultry corn to put a bit of fat on them.
I just stretch their necks, skin them, as I cannot be bothered to pluck, and use them in stews and pies.

They taste how chickens used to taste - of chicken!

 

[hammers]

Wait until the chicks are around 6 weeks old and the difference is easy to spot. The males will have a bigger comb and usually different colouring on the neck feathers. Leave them to grow and about a month before you want them for the pot, get them in somewhere and give them poultry corn to put a bit of fat on them.
I just stretch their necks, skin them, as I cannot be bothered to pluck, and use them in stews and pies.

They taste how chickens used to taste - of chicken!

Thanks old boar for hte suggestion. Will wait for 6 weeks. And thanks other members for the suggestions as well.