2480. Strutting cockerels

(WARNING: The discerning reader might find out why.)

I want to thank you for posting your wonderful article online. It is not a pleasant topic and people shun talking about it, but your article imparted how to develop skills that people in my situation need. So a big thank you.

These last few years I have kept chickens. I view them as pets really, although for a good deal of the year they provide eggs. One of the great delights of keeping poultry is having them hatch out babies. They are so lovely, so cute, so soft and fluffy and darling. I can’t help myself when a hen goes broody. I just have to put half a dozen eggs under her for these miracles to hatch three weeks later.

A disadvantage of this “weakness” of mine (I call it a weakness because I suppose I shouldn’t do it so often) is that a good half of the baby chickens are boys. And really, in a flock of fowls (unlike humans) only one male is necessary. So I have a plethora of cockerels strutting around and I don’t know what to do with them.

This is where your wonderful online posting comes in; for once someone has the knowledge to say how to kill a rooster humanely. I was able to exterminate eight without any suffering. As I say, I view them as pets so it’s important to me that they are put down in a caring way.

At first I thought it looked complicated, so I practised on my son’s canaries. Of course I botched that up. There were blood and feathers everywhere. So I practised on my daughter’s rabbits and got so much better at it. Thank you once again for your caring article.

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