Topic: Chicken fanciers

[Mrs Ava]

Can I ask a rather sensitive question please......

Do you keep chooks purely for the eggs, and pleasure of having them, or do some of you once in a while have roast chicken for your Sunday lunch?  :o

[OliveOil]

I have mine for eggs - they are pets too... but at the same time i would have no probs ringing a chooks neck whether due to illness or for eating.  I think the only prbs would be the drawing the innerds out!  And OH refuses to do that so i have a problem with the roast dept.

I think if you have lots of chooks it would be easier than having just a few and eating those as you would know them all too well... if you have lots you would have your favorites and some personalities you just wouldnt take to so easy to eat them ones i think.

[sandersj89]

At this stage mine are very much for eggs and for the kids to understand a little about looking at them correctly.

If I had more room then I would consider raising some for meat and woould not have a problem humanely dispatching them and drawing them.....

Jerry

[Heldi]

Mine are all pets. 13 grown up girls,9 chicks and 1 cockerel. I love their peronalities and I love their plummage. Think if I had a big field I'd collect lots of different breeds just because I enjoy how they look. I get loads of eggs which is a bonus! I sell them for a pound a doz and put the money in a ceramic chook which then pays for the feed.

Don't know if you know about Dennis my cockerel? We've been having trouble with him lately. It's got to the point where I don't trust him anymore.Can't find a new home for him so OH wants to eat him.  Whilst I think then atleast his life is not totally wasted I don't want to know about when and if the deed is done,I'll be too upset.  I know...I'm a total wimp.

OH has been hush hush about his thoughts. He has asked a friend who is a retired butcher if he will dress the bird after he is killed.  This friend came into the allotment yesterday and asked the kids in a loud voice, "So I hear you're going to have roast chicken on the menu?!"  Jeez, right in front of my son >:( Dennis is his pet and he still wants to keep him.  

If I had set out to grow chickens for meat then my approach would have had to have been different. Not naming them and keeping quite unattached. I'm trying not to get too involved with my little chicks as I know some of them will be moving on if they are boys. (I half expect OH will want to have them for the table too). Hard lessons to learn but it's what happens and I'll deal with it. Another thing is...I don't eat meat!

[kitty]

deffo fer eggs our lot! ;D
after all-i dont eat the rest of my family!

heldi-re;dennis-i followed your story-i posted about our psychopathic cockerel-he ..er...'went away'(our son was 8 at the time)but ,for what its worth-by the time home grown birds are plucked and dressed-theres b****r all on them-when we last kept hens,20 odd years ago we had them 'dispatched' when we moved back to town,by the local gamekeeper-its not as easy as it looks either-necking is a art that needs practise..the local butcher  did the dirty job,and when we went to collect he was laughing very hard and said he wouldnt charge for his service as they were so teeny-couldnt eat 'em anyway-and i'll eat owt with a face just about!
hens for eggs and a comfy end i say!
kitty
xx

[Paulines7]

I couldn't eat any of our chickens.   :o    They are kept for the eggs they produce and to clear the vegetable plots.   

If I have too many chickens at any one time, especially cockerels or young chicks, I take them to the local livestock market where they are sold for a few pounds.  I don't know what happens to the chickens I put up for sale there but expect some go to a new home.  Unfortunately, the risk is that some are bought just for slaughter.    :'(

Sometimes we have had to put chickens down when they have become ill and it is very difficult and unpleaseant.  I once bought some Maran chicks and several of then went down with Marek's disease by the time they were a few months old.  The disease is awful as the bird becomes paralised.   There is no alternative other than to put them down.   :(

Heldi, please don't eat Dennis.  Try and find him a home or else take him to your local livestock market and hope that he finds somewhere else to go. 

[Mrs Ava]

Thanks for your answers peeps.  I was curious.  I do understand completely that when you only have a few - even a dozen or more, they are more pets than livestock.  I worked with a chap today and he has 10 hens and he keeps them for eggs, and also because he hated the waste of food on the table when his kids didn't eat their supper, so he got chool and the scraps fed the chooks.  Having a meat eating hub and sproglets, I guess if we ever did keep chooks, then some would end up in the pot, but we would never use enough eggs, and there are so many peeps round us that keep chooks and sell their eggs I don't know if anyone would ever buy them.  Oh well, when I am old and grey and the kids have upped and left me, maybe I will get some then....well, a girl can dream!

[teresa]

Main reason for me was fresh eggs could not buy any.
started with 3 got 3 more fresh eggs nothing like it, they eat the weeds lottie and garden plus table scraps the poo fert lottie and garden.
Hens started to go broody and I got hooked on hatching, family came to see chicks and got educated on how  it all happens all ages got taught.
Eating my hens no I would rather buy one by the time my hens have finished laying would be to tough to eat young ones make better eating.
Get your children some silkies they make great pets very pretty and lay a good size egg for med birds.

[Heldi]

Just wrote a long reply and lost it! I'm in a huff now...it was because I was laughing and I pressed the wrong button.

Kitty,yes I do remember your wayward cockerel!
Thought that since a bloke on the lotty said he had cooked one of his chooks and it tasted like and old boot it would have put OH off. Will have to remind him.

Pauline I really don't want Dennis eaten. I'm hanging in there.

Had a dream that Dennis was stolen by the gypsies that moved onto the field over the road. Dennis being stolen wasn't real but the gypsies are. Funny thing...they have arrived with their caravans and 4x4s to pull them...and a pony. So where exactly did the pony travel ??!!  Cracks me up to think about it. Surely they don't put it in one of the caravans LOL!  :o  ::)  ;D

EJ just a thought...you could look into breeds that don't lay as much and if you only had 2 or 3 chooks you wouldn't get the eggs glut.

My eggs go to a pub which does B&B. Didn't know that until the other day as a neighbour takes them off me and let it slip...bet he's making a profit an all heeheehee!

A bloke I know keeps banties and feeds their little eggs, hard boiled, to his canaries to use them up. It promotes the colour in the feathers apparently. Same bloke takes my eggs for a "lady " friend.  :D

[lorna]

Children and animals. Sorry going off the chicks and on to pigs!!When we had pigs, we had quite a few, we would send one to be slaughtered for our own consumption.The three girls were adamant that they would not eat one of our pigs. We had to tell a fib and say that it was from our friend/neighbour over the road!!.They didn't know for quite a few years.
Lorna

[Robert_Brenchley]

When I lived in Cornwall, my sister had goats, and we just treated them as food on the hoof. She slaughtered them herself, and we all enjoyed eating them. We just didn't make pets out of them.

[welsummerman]

if you are keeping chickens and want a meat bird  then choose a bird that is bred for the purpose ,as it is really pointless to use a hen egg as unless they have a weight problem they are only useful for Barby's the wings and legs only and then stock but the point i wish to make is this  if you cannot take a chickens life be it for food or illness  then learn or make sure you really have someone close who can do the deed  there are many humane dispatchers on the market get one practise on a piece of old hose pipe , then if you do need to kill then at least you will know how
regs welly