Having discovered that Jane is infact a cockerel I'm not sure what to do about him. I hadn't ever planned on breeding. I don't want to put him in the pot. Do I make him seperate living quarters?
He's called Dennis now. After "The Menace"
is he a brother of the rest of the flock? i have mine in with the girls and he doesn't cause any bother.
Not likely to be a problem over Winter anyway. If he starts accosting the hens, you could remove him, but unless you leave the eggs under a hen they will not hatch. There is no difference between fertilised eggs and unfertilised eggs as far as using in the kitchen is concerned.
He is the brother of one of them Mandroid. Having thought about it she is quite feisty towards him.
Hi Eric. So I don't have to panic right away then. Phew! He does seem a little dominant towards the others. That is what alerted me to him in the first place. I've been keeping an eye on him and was still unsure until this morning...he crowed at OH!
They are about 6 months old now.
Quote from: Palustris on November 18, 2005, 14:43:17
Not likely to be a problem over Winter anyway. If he starts accosting the hens, you could remove him, but unless you leave the eggs under a hen they will not hatch. There is no difference between fertilised eggs and unfertilised eggs as far as using in the kitchen is concerned.
There is if you are a veggie.
if you want to hatch littles chicks next year make sure you dont use any eggs that the brother and sister may have produced and fertilised. it wouldn't be pretty. thats why i asked if they were related. use your other hens for breeding purposes.
chickens are great aren't they? did you hatch yours from eggs or did you buy them fully grown?
don :)
Hey Don!
I got mine locally at about 3 months old. A guy in the village down the road has White Stars,Bovan Neras and Light Sussex. The cockerel and his sis are Light Sussex,I have three bovans neras and another looks like a cross between a White Star and a Light Sussex. Not entirely sure if any of them are exactly pure bred to be honest. Not bothered though as I think they are fab! I don't even really mind if they aren't big on the laying front, I just enjoy them for what they are. Great fun.
i could watch mine all day long!
i hope that in the spring they will be forthcoming with eggs - i'm sure yours will be too. i have a few different types as well and like you im not bothered if they're full or cross breeds.
do you find that each one has a different personality?
Yes definately. I have one "Tallulah" who is nutty and dashes about the garden on a mission. Then there's Jessie who is always under my feet. Very nosey she is. She doesn't mind being picked up and stroked. Blossom was timid when she was younger but she comes out of the pen and is straight up onto the wheelbarrow to look down on the rest. Lilly and Betty are a team. They always come over when I sit down and inspect the bottom of my shoes. Dennis thinks he's the boss but Jessie definately has the measure of him.
Dennis is just doing what he should be doing.."Looking after his Ladys ;)"
just leave him with them all year round.....as your using the eggs to eat
not to hatch....but if you fancy seeing all different kinds of both hens and
ducks...and dependent on time of year...geese and turkeys too...then
head for either Longtown or Carlisle poultry sales...can recommend
Longtown...it is always a bigger sale only went to Carlisle 3 times (Was
after a specific bird each time).
it's a shame about the whole bird flu thing the poultry sales/shows are all cancelled now for the foreseeable future.
EEEEEK! Had a bloke who keeps chooks around the lotty today and it seems that Jessie could be a cockerel too!
Crikey. What do I do?
Two males can be a bit messy, even with lots of space. Once you know for sure I would try and find a new home for him or separate and then fatten up...........
Jerry
Jerry I couldn't kill Jessie (now Jessie James) he/she follows me about all the time I'm at the lotty,and how could I explain to my son that Dennis had to go??! The harsh realities of looking after livestock become blatantly apparent. We only wanted a few pets !
Sorry Heldi - shouldn't giggle but I'm reading this wondering how many more cockerels you might have, and also thinking it would be about my luck to have all cockerels and no hens ;D
Quote from: Heldi on November 21, 2005, 14:39:12
The harsh realities of looking after livestock become blatantly apparent.
This is a dilemma for many poultry keepers and a problem for many people who do not keep birds or raise livestock. Maybe coming from a farming background I am a little more hardened then most but I do not see it as a huge issue. Don’t get me wrong, I love the hens and do my best to look after them and give them a the best care possible,  but if I ended up inadvertently with more male birds than I could cope with and could not find an acceptable alternative home then I would have no compunction in rearing him as an eating bird, again giving the correct care and treating him and his meat with the respect it is due. Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall deals with this very well in his books and programs. (Also if a bird was suffering in any way I would not think twice about dispatching it quickly and humanely, anyone who keeps livestock should learn to do this early on in case they are called upon to do it).
And I also think it is a valuable lesson for kids to learn. Both mine, 8 and 4, are fully aware of where our food comes from. Obviously they help out in the allotment/garden and sow and pick vegetables, they also help out at my parents farm when we get down to see them. They understand the lambs that they help bottle feed end up as roast lamb on their plate. They help pluck pigeons and joint rabbits that are shot as part of pest control and understand as why it has to be done, (the 4 years old does not understand the concept of money as yet but does understand the damage the rabbits do, especially when they target her carrots which she so loves to eat and grow).
Giving young kids a chance to see how meat is produced first hand should, if done correctly, increase their understanding and respect for the animals, thus reducing the risk of cruelty. Today far to many people are decoupled from meat production thanks to supermarket, plastic wrapped meat. Nearly everyone in my family can pluck a bird, draw it and joint it. Not really learnt but just copied from my parents and they from their parents and so on. It used to be a very very common skill.
And the more people who have respect for the meat they are eating the better, as they will demand far better from the supermarkets, or more likely stop using them for meat, as they will want locally produced meat farmed to high levels of husbandry. Might be a bit of a Utopia at the moment but I see signs around us all the time that things might just go that way. Funny enough the success of A4A might be another indicator as many of us here grow our veg just so we don’t have to go to the local supermarket to eat plastic wrapped French beans flown in from Kenya in the middle of February.
Sorry, a bit of an off tangent rant. Apologies is it is way off topic!
Jerry
Delilah,don't apologise for finding it funny, we have had a good laugh about it. I don't want anymore cockerels though!!
Thanks Jerry.
You are ofcourse quite right with what you say. I haven't been brought up in a farming community so the reality of the kill has not been in my face. Though I do remember butcher's shops where the thing was done in the back and carcasses were hung up around the shop. Don't see that anymore because of health and safety I expect. I vividly remember an indoor market in Newcastle with pigs hanging up. I hated it as a child. Hated the smell,the sawdust on the floor,everything, but atleast I was aware of where the product came from. Thats as close as it got for me.
I think I can't see myself eating one of the chooks because it was not ever in my mind to do so. If I had set out with the intention of using the bird for the pot then I think I would be hardened to the idea. Don't know if I'm explaining it properly. Besides that, my neighbour said he cooked one of his and it was like eating "effing leather!"
Have you seen the latest Gordon Ramsey food show? Think it's called "The F in Food". He has some turkeys in his garden because he wants his children to know and understand where their Christmas dinner comes from. He is going along with everything you have said here.
Had conflicting views about the two cockerels being together. Some say definate non starter others say probably not a problem because they've been together since day one. They don't seem to be aggressive towards each other,a little feather fluffing but then all the hens seem to be doing that. (Oh no please don't let there be more males :o ).
OH says that if they do start to fight we will seperate them and let them have their own hens. We have a big enough allotment and plenty room to house them. We shall see how it unfolds.
Dennis the Menace and Jessie James better behave themselves.
I ll keep my fingers crossed for you x
My lotty neighbour told the hens to behave themselves else they'll be paxoed!