Best place to advertise roosters?

cltt97

My elderly neighbour has two young roosters and we need to find a new home, as there is one main rooster and two hens and long term I don't think this is going to work.... Where is the best place to advertise them? Worried they'll be eaten or used illegally for cock-fighting if I just put them up on one of the general selling webpages???

deckycoop

cltt97 wrote: »

Worried they'll be eaten or used illegally for cock-fighting if I just put them up on one of the general selling webpages???

seriously. u dont want a young rooster to be eatin. do u wonder where roast chicken comes from,

aonb

yes, you need to get them away from the resident rooster before the young ones mature or there will be blood drawn - apart from the fact that 3 roosters with 3 hens is NOT a good situation.

Your best bet for a good home for them is to find a breeder that wants them - are they purebreeds?? - go on one of the websites like irishfowl.com or irish-poultry.com - or put an ad up in the local farm shop/feeds store. Unfortunately roosters unless pure breeds arent usually wanted

It would be more humane to have them dispatched than to end up being used for baiting or fighting :mad::mad:

cltt97

Thanks aonb! To be honest I don't know what breed they are. The resident rooster is redish/brown with a green tail and he fathered each rooster one with a brown hen and the other with the black hen. The one from the red hen looks like him, the one from the black hen looks very exotic! They were taken from some urban farm initiative that went terribly wrong so they were kind of rescue chickens and I don't have any information on their purity of breed... I took a picture, in case you know a thing or two about roosters?

aonb

They arent pure breeds by the sounds of it OP.
The problem then is that someone who wants to breed wont want a cockeral that isnt a pure bred cockeral.
Unless there is someone who has hens that wants to replace a cockeral that has died/whatever your chances of rehoming these two boys are slim really...
Try advertising them as suggested in previous post, you could get lucky.

Failing that, maybe you could find a poultry person locally that would be prepared to come and dispatch them humanely if all else fails - sorry if that sounds harsh/cruel but I believe that an animal is better off put to sleep rather than dumped/starved/left fend for itself or much worse

It would also be worth ensuring that your elderly neighbour doesnt let the hens roost on eggs producing any more chicks/future roosters!

cltt97

Yes I think eventually the resident rooster has to go, too.... very stupid question, but can adult roosters be neutered? She really loves those chickens and enjoys their company....

And no, those animals will not be left to suffer in any shape or form, I will make sure of that!

cltt97

pics of roosters

aonb

a castrated rooster is a capon. This was done by hen keepers to keep meat tender, but it needs to be done at a very early age. Im not sure a modern day vet would do this any more...

But dont panic yet - you have a few solutions:
- see if you can rehome the two young ones - or whichever of the 3 your elderly neighbour doesnt prefer.
- see how they get on for now - you could be very lucky and there is no fighting
- seperate the two young roosters - keep them in a divided/wired off area?
- is there a pet farm or some such nearby that you could donate the young pair to?
- dont worry about getting rid of the resident rooster - you wont have more chicks if you ensure that the eggs are collected - it takes about 3 weeks sitting on eggs to produce chicks, so if your neighbour or you are diligent about collecting the eggs, you shouldnt have to worry!

The curse of chicken keeping is that chicks are usually more roosters than hens - candling eggs or sexing chicks takes care of that issue, but obviously no use to you/your neighbour. I can understand that she is fond of her chucks/enjoys having them (I love my hens:rolleyes:) You are good to worry about the young roosters - good luck!

cltt97

Thanks for all your help, we'll see how we get one with finding homes for the roosters. The little black fella has started crowing the other day. They seem to get on very well, they're happy chickens, very social, they even get one with all my cats! Problem is just two hens and 3 roosters - poor hens!!! I'll see about fencing them off. I'll check about pet farms, although I'm not aware of any...

abutler101

Your chance of rehorming cross bred cockerels is very slim, try advertising on irishfowl.com, fowl.ie and irish-poultry.com to see if anyone will take them. I think culling them would be the most humane option and it can be done at home if you have the nerve, I can talk you through one fairly easy method or you could see if there are any poultry keepers near you who could do it for you.

On neutering, caponising cockerels is illegal in the eu and requires a surgury to remove the testicles.

cltt97

Jesus... I don't think I could cull anything. If they need to go they are going to the vet.....

Pity you can't neuter them, it would be the easiest way to keep them all... How can you tell the breed of a bird? The resident rooster looks like a rhode island red from looking at pics, and the brown hen may well be one of those, too. The black hen is different for sure - she lays lovely white eggs and "her" offspring rooster looks very exotic.

abutler101

Post some pictures of them and I can tell you what breed they are. A black hen laying a white egg is probably a Minorca. The brown hen to the right of the picture looks like a cross. I wouldn't be too sure that caponising changes the personality.

cltt97

Ok, will have to do that tomorrow, too dark now, here is part of the resident rooster...

abutler101

Just going by the look of his head and neck there is some brahma in him. I wouldn't be able to tell 100% without a full body image though.

cltt97

Ok, today was a better day for pictures apart from the fact that they of course don't stand still for me! Here's the resident rooster again, and also a picture of the brown hen

cltt97

And here are better pictures of the two cockerels, I think the black one is very beautiful!

abutler101

The brown hen is a red hybrid (a commercially produced crossbred made for laying eggs), all the rest are crossbreds