[Clarie]

Oh  dear the noisy cockerel has been dispatched. Four of the seven chicks we hatched in May were boys and one of them has been crowing for the last couple of weeks. The neighbours kept mentioning they could hear him and he was fighting with one of the other cockerels. So the deed has been done. I do feel bad about it as he was a Welsummer and had beautiful markings, but he had to go. Actually he hasn't gone that far as he's hanging upside down in the garage and will make a lovely roast dinner. My daughter has already said she won't eat him and I'm still a little unsure but the boys of the household are much less squeamish.
We have three more cockerels (who have all been very quiet this weekend): another Welsummer, a Cookoo Maran and a black one with hairy legs. I am advertising them on the swap site here and have then advertised elsewhere as FTGH and would prefer they didn't suffer the same fate as this one.
But, what can you do? He's had a good life for the last few months running round the garden and being spoilt rotten so I don't feel TOO bad about it.

[joyfull]

It's only what a few of us do, and there really is no need dispatching them for nothing 

[Casey76]

Don't feel too bad.  As you said he will make a tasty roast dinner.  If you have never eaten home grown chicken before you will be amazed at the difference.

I can hardly bear to eat supermarket chicken now!

[Clarie]

I've never had home grown chicken so it will be interesting to see if I can tell the difference. But I have to say it fits in with our lifestyle at the moment with all of the fresh produce from the allotment, homemade jams etc and new this week home made bread (am loving my new breadmaker!). It would have been absolutely wrong to have dispatched him for nothing so it's right that he provides a lovely dinner.
However I do love the cookoo maran, or The Big Boy with a Deep Voice as he's been named. I think when his time comes I shall donate him to our friend down the lane who was happy doing the dispatching. I know I couldn't eat him, no not big boy! Our friend told us you shouldn't make friends with food and he is so right!

[NormandyMary]

I've never had home grown chicken so it will be interesting to see if I can tell the difference. But I have to say it fits in with our lifestyle at the moment with all of the fresh produce from the allotment, homemade jams etc and new this week home made bread (am loving my new breadmaker!). It would have been absolutely wrong to have dispatched him for nothing so it's right that he provides a lovely dinner.
However I do love the cookoo maran, or The Big Boy with a Deep Voice as he's been named. I think when his time comes I shall donate him to our friend down the lane who was happy doing the dispatching. I know I couldn't eat him, no not big boy! Our friend told us you shouldn't make friends with food and he is so right!

But how can you NOT get attached to them when you feed them every day, see them at least twice a day, talk to them, see to their needs, dung them out etc. I admire you for having the courage to have it done. I just know that I could only get them culled to put them out of their misery. Even then, its a real tug at the heartstrings. But then, Im a real softie!!

[Casey76]

When you think of them as food on legs every time you see them it gets easier, honestly.

Then, when the cockerals start running at you and pecking at you, it makes things much clearer

[Clarie]

Oh goodness I don't think I could ever consider them food on legs. I just couldn't be so objective. This cockerel was very noisy from before he was let out of the hen house until he went to bed. I felt we had no choice but to have him dispatched. The others haven't found their voices yet but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. In the meantime big boy with a deep voice is having his wicked way with as many of the girls as he can. Maybe he knows his days are numbered??

[themagicaltoad1]

We were very lucky, 4 out of the 6 hatched and only 1 turned out to be a boy. As soon as he started to crow we arranged for a friend with a field of hens to take him, but he was off on holiday and we'd have to wait 3 weeks. We explained this to the neighbours and asked them to be patient for 3 weeks. By the end of that time they'd all got together and came and asked us to keep him because they liked the sound- it made them feel like they were living in the country instead of a town. For 3 weeks we'd been cringing every time Pingu crowed thinking the neighbours would be upset and instead it was having the opposite effect!

[NormandyMary]

We were very lucky, 4 out of the 6 hatched and only 1 turned out to be a boy. As soon as he started to crow we arranged for a friend with a field of hens to take him, but he was off on holiday and we'd have to wait 3 weeks. We explained this to the neighbours and asked them to be patient for 3 weeks. By the end of that time they'd all got together and came and asked us to keep him because they liked the sound- it made them feel like they were living in the country instead of a town. For 3 weeks we'd been cringing every time Pingu crowed thinking the neighbours would be upset and instead it was having the opposite effect!

That's a lovely story. In fact though think about how many people have to put up with dogs barking constantly in towns and villages. A crowing cockerel is a much pleasanter sound.

[Clarie]

I completely agree. We live in the country along a gravel track but have neighbours on three sides. Two of the neighbours would have been absolutely fine but one lot were starting to make a fuss about the noise. Some people seem to want a sanatised version of the country and don't accept that a crowing cockerel is part of country life. Shame.

[evie2]

I lived in a tiny hamlet when I first ventured south, it was wonderful, full of birdsong, crowing, bleating, neighing and the low rumble of the bull   Plenty of cow pats, sheep droppings and horse manure with that 'real country smell' as Mum used to say

It's such a pity it's spoiled by sanitised townies, IMO

[jinty1911]

We are surronded by Seagulls and Crows that screech every morning at day break but I still worry about my chicks making a noise and annoying the neighbours.  Fingers crossed 4 weeks later and none have yet.   

[orchardlady]

I've heard people complain about the church bells in our village!!!!! Hopeless.

[francais]

Try this one then.... newbies brought a cottage in a small village where I grew up. House was lovely, at the bottom of a lovely field, big garden, drive way straight of the road etc. What did they complain about? Cows in the field looking at them over the fence! Cows in the country who would have thought it hey? did they not think field might have cows in them??  That still makes me laugh 15 odd years on!!!

[Junie]

Don't feel too bad about it, We had been semi vegetarian ( eat fish though) since 1996.  Before we had chickens we had to make the decision on what would happen to the cockerel chicks, We are trying to be more self sufficient, and in the scheme of things the only thing we could really do was to dispatch them. 
The reason we went vegetarian was to do with way the animals were kept ( organic meat was very hard to come by in 1996).  so working on that we decided that as we had known the birds and that they had been kept well and cared for and killed humanly, why should they go to waste.
My husband does the actual killing, but we all help with the plucking and I gutted the last one.