3 ms·

Male chicks make as good of soup as hens. However, roosters are assholes and don't get along with other roosters by the time they are butcher weight.

hansvm 1y ago
They don't get along with any animals, and the problem starts well before they're butcher weight. It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens.
- esperent 1y ago
  > It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens. Can you explain what you mean by this?
  - b112 1y ago
    Just google chicken glasses as a start of a thread to pull on.
    - esperent 1y ago
      Yes, I'm aware that chickens can be aggressive or even occasionally cannibalistic (although that's never happened to any groups of chickens I've seen). But that doesn't explain anything about why you're saying an entire hen house can be murdered when you fail to sex chicks. I've never heard that male chicken are worse in this regard, excessive feather pecking is a result of keeping chickens in terrible environments like battery/cage farms and happens in fully female groups. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_pecking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_pecking
      - hansvm 1y ago
        It happens from time to time even with free range chickens if a rooster picks a fight while they're all in the coop for the night.
- XorNot 1y ago
  My in-laws turned quite a few roosters into dinners while trying to find one which actually had an even temper with their chickens, so yeah it's a serious issue.
  - b112 1y ago
    That only works, if you know it's a chicken: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbnc83MS98 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbnc83MS98
- northhnbesthn 1y ago
  Do elaborate. Does Chad Thundercock go ballistic on all the hens?
  - aaronbaugher 1y ago
    Pretty much. Small-time chicken owner here. The best ratio of hens to roosters is about 10-to-1. Each rooster will have his "harem" of hens that keep him busy, and the hens will be content. Any more roosters than that and they'll fight a lot, and the roosters that don't have their own group of hens will hang around the others looking for a chance to rape them while their regular rooster is occupied or too far away. It can be pretty hard on the hens. I've never had a rooster kill hens, though. Each other, sure, but not the hens. I don't really buy that. Some context for this article that most people don't know: there are chicken breeds for meat (Cornish Cross, mostly) and breeds for eggs. The egg breeds are skinny and won't become a good meat bird no matter how much you feed them. I guess you can caponize them and they'll gain more weight, but that's a process that costs money. You could use them for soup, but that probably wouldn't be cost-effective either, so that's why the large-scale operations just kill them.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > The best ratio of hens to roosters is about 10-to-1. Each rooster will have his "harem" of hens that keep him busy, and the hens will be content. Any more roosters than that and they'll fight a lot, and the roosters that don't have their own group of hens will hang around the others looking for a chance to rape them while their regular rooster is occupied or too far away. It can be pretty hard on the hens. It seems like a sick joke of nature that a species that behaves this way wouldn't also naturally be born in a similar ratio. I wonder if they're like that in the wild, too....
      - grues-dinner 1y ago
        There's no real such thing as a "natural" chicken, but their ancestors, red junglefowl, are similar. In fact, healthier females produce more males (https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/119/3/840/5561973 https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/119/3/840/5561973). Perhaps it's evolutionary turned out to be good for fitness of the species if 90% of the males are killed by other males or otherwise don't mate and that outweighs "wasting" 4.5/10 eggs. Nature doesn't "care" (yes, yes, active verb for non-conscious process) if it's pretty, just that it works. In general, life in nature just ain't that fun as a junior member of an r-selected species, which includes chickens.
kimbernator 1y ago
It sounds like (based on the article), large-scale companies will usually either do eggs or chicken meat, not both. So you're not wrong but I see why it's not that simple.
- Ekaros 1y ago
  Broiler that is meat chicken and egg laying chickens are different breeds. So focusing on one of those is pretty sensible.
RansomStark 1y ago
You don't usually leave roosters whole if you keep them for food. You make Capons, they get huge, almost like turkeys but with all the juicy benefits of a fat chicken. The problem with egg roosters is that the breads used for eggs are so badly bred for maximum egg laying that they mostly unusable for good food. Might be good for pet food and canned stuff. The real solution here is to demand mixed bread chickens that lay slightly fewer eggs, but can also be used for good meat.

hansvm 1y ago

They don't get along with any animals, and the problem starts well before they're butcher weight. It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens.

esperent 1y ago
> It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens. Can you explain what you mean by this?
- b112 1y ago
  Just google chicken glasses as a start of a thread to pull on.
  - esperent 1y ago
    Yes, I'm aware that chickens can be aggressive or even occasionally cannibalistic (although that's never happened to any groups of chickens I've seen). But that doesn't explain anything about why you're saying an entire hen house can be murdered when you fail to sex chicks. I've never heard that male chicken are worse in this regard, excessive feather pecking is a result of keeping chickens in terrible environments like battery/cage farms and happens in fully female groups. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_pecking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_pecking
    - hansvm 1y ago
      It happens from time to time even with free range chickens if a rooster picks a fight while they're all in the coop for the night.
XorNot 1y ago
My in-laws turned quite a few roosters into dinners while trying to find one which actually had an even temper with their chickens, so yeah it's a serious issue.
- b112 1y ago
  That only works, if you know it's a chicken: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbnc83MS98 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbnc83MS98
northhnbesthn 1y ago
Do elaborate. Does Chad Thundercock go ballistic on all the hens?
- aaronbaugher 1y ago
  Pretty much. Small-time chicken owner here. The best ratio of hens to roosters is about 10-to-1. Each rooster will have his "harem" of hens that keep him busy, and the hens will be content. Any more roosters than that and they'll fight a lot, and the roosters that don't have their own group of hens will hang around the others looking for a chance to rape them while their regular rooster is occupied or too far away. It can be pretty hard on the hens. I've never had a rooster kill hens, though. Each other, sure, but not the hens. I don't really buy that. Some context for this article that most people don't know: there are chicken breeds for meat (Cornish Cross, mostly) and breeds for eggs. The egg breeds are skinny and won't become a good meat bird no matter how much you feed them. I guess you can caponize them and they'll gain more weight, but that's a process that costs money. You could use them for soup, but that probably wouldn't be cost-effective either, so that's why the large-scale operations just kill them.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > The best ratio of hens to roosters is about 10-to-1. Each rooster will have his "harem" of hens that keep him busy, and the hens will be content. Any more roosters than that and they'll fight a lot, and the roosters that don't have their own group of hens will hang around the others looking for a chance to rape them while their regular rooster is occupied or too far away. It can be pretty hard on the hens. It seems like a sick joke of nature that a species that behaves this way wouldn't also naturally be born in a similar ratio. I wonder if they're like that in the wild, too....
    - grues-dinner 1y ago
      There's no real such thing as a "natural" chicken, but their ancestors, red junglefowl, are similar. In fact, healthier females produce more males (https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/119/3/840/5561973 https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/119/3/840/5561973). Perhaps it's evolutionary turned out to be good for fitness of the species if 90% of the males are killed by other males or otherwise don't mate and that outweighs "wasting" 4.5/10 eggs. Nature doesn't "care" (yes, yes, active verb for non-conscious process) if it's pretty, just that it works. In general, life in nature just ain't that fun as a junior member of an r-selected species, which includes chickens.

kimbernator 1y ago

It sounds like (based on the article), large-scale companies will usually either do eggs or chicken meat, not both. So you're not wrong but I see why it's not that simple.

Ekaros 1y ago
Broiler that is meat chicken and egg laying chickens are different breeds. So focusing on one of those is pretty sensible.

RansomStark 1y ago

You don't usually leave roosters whole if you keep them for food. You make Capons, they get huge, almost like turkeys but with all the juicy benefits of a fat chicken. The problem with egg roosters is that the breads used for eggs are so badly bred for maximum egg laying that they mostly unusable for good food. Might be good for pet food and canned stuff. The real solution here is to demand mixed bread chickens that lay slightly fewer eggs, but can also be used for good meat.