Illinois...

[Faraday40]

Oh Yes. The neighbor egg tax really helps! I give out zucchini, cucumbers, & tomatoes to all the neighbors. Mainly because my next door neighbor generously gave me the use of her former garden + the use of her tiller. (Now I have 3x the garden space!) When I mentioned keeping hens, I could see the neighbors thinking ...."fresh eggs!"

Keeping a rooster definitely complicates things. Mine both crowed more (& louder) after 9 + months. Be willing to find him a home if you feel a neighbor may object. In the long run, 4-5 quiet hens can go unnoticed for years. A loud roo is a neon sign telling everyone within 4-5 blocks that you have chickens on your property. Of course if the neighbors like the idea, it's wonderful. (We get free veggie peels for the flock while the neighbors get eggs & all the manure/compost they wish.)

 

[ChicagoClucker]

Oh Yes. The neighbor egg tax really helps! I give out zucchini, cucumbers, & tomatoes to all the neighbors. Mainly because my next door neighbor generously gave me the use of her former garden + the use of her tiller. (Now I have 3x the garden space!) When I mentioned keeping hens, I could see the neighbors thinking ...."fresh eggs!"

Keeping a rooster definitely complicates things. Mine both crowed more (& louder) after 9 + months. Be willing to find him a home if you feel a neighbor may object. In the long run, 4-5 quiet hens can go unnoticed for years. A loud roo is a neon sign telling everyone within 4-5 blocks that you have chickens on your property. Of course if the neighbors like the idea, it's wonderful. (We get free veggie peels for the flock while the neighbors get eggs & all the manure/compost they wish.)

What more crowing! I thought he was just practicing a lot! OMG! Well I might be keeping a maran roo if I hatch out a cockerel. Out of 6 eggs, after candling, only 3 are developing. With my luck, they will be 3 roosters.

I hand out tomatoes and peppers too. (I had the best year, last year, for peppers.) I am trying to come up with additional space for my gardening this year. Thinking of turning my unused metal gazebo into a greenhouse so the chickens can't get in or doing some raised beds with hoop greenhouse over the top. Either way, I need more garden space. I wish my neighbor behind me would let me use some of their yard for gardening. Instead of having a typical alley here in Chicago, I have a neighbor who owns 2 houses where the alley would be and they have a 350ft deep backyard. When they bought the houses, there was an old chicken coop back there that they got rid of. I wish I had their yard. Think of all the chickens I could have! Sounds like you have a good neighbor.

 

[cavemanrich]

I wonder if there is any surgical procedure that would make roosters mute ????? I would consider keeping one then . Of course the $$$ would have to be within reason for the procedure.

 

[jerryse]

I wonder if there is any surgical procedure that would make roosters mute ????? I would consider keeping one then . Of course the $$$ would have to be within reason for the procedure.

Yes there is a surgical procedure a no it is not within reason $$$ . There is one on the for sale thread for $350.00

 

[cavemanrich]

Yes there is a surgical procedure a no it is not within reason $$$ . There is one on the for sale thread for $350.00

Thanks for the info.
$350 is defiantly a good chunk of change. Veterinarians do need to earn a living as well as pay for their school. I guess I will be keeping only hens as I have been. I don't need fertile eggs. I just like the beauty of a roo. I did have my hopes for a Red Jungle fowl roo.

 

[eracerx46]

I wonder if there is any surgical procedure that would make roosters mute ????? I would consider keeping one then . Of course the $$$ would have to be within reason for the procedure.

You could also caponize them when theyre younger and you could do that yourself if you can stomach it. They're not roosters anymore then so I guess that defeats the purpose. But, it stops the crowing. I'm tempted to try it with my next hatch

 

[ChicagoClucker]

You could also caponize them when theyre younger and you could do that yourself if you can stomach it. They're not roosters anymore then so I guess that defeats the purpose. But, it stops the crowing. I'm tempted to try it with my next hatch

My son said the same thing. He had been traveling and volunteered at an organic ranch off the coast of Chile. When he came home and saw the roosters, he said lets caponize them, they will get huge! There is no way I could do that, ever! Besides, I kept him to fertilize the eggs and protect the girls.

 

[eracerx46]

I've got as many roosters as I want. So, I either cull my next hatch, or turn a few into Capons. Couple different breeds I'd like to get so id like to keep at least one roo of each breed. Any more and its either cull or capon.

 

[Faraday40]

I wonder if there is any surgical procedure that would make roosters mute ????? I would consider keeping one then . Of course the $$$ would have to be within reason for the procedure.

I researched it last year when we had a very sweet roo.
quietroosters.com

The vet no longer does the surgery, but sells post-surgery roos for a pretty penny.
In our case, it was best to rehome our sweet boy. Our current roo, Tank, is here temporally - or at least that's what I tell myself.

I think we still have a roo because many of my neighbors are widows & have a soft spot for my kids. It's like having 5 grandmas living around us! They're always keeping an eye out, baking cookies, and giving little trinkets to the kids. Even willing to babysit in a pinch. Only Downside: DH has a lot of driveways to shovel in the winter! Of course one of ladies gave us her old POWERFUL snow blower, so it's the least we could do.

 

[cavemanrich]

You could also caponize them when theyre younger and you could do that yourself if you can stomach it. They're not roosters anymore then so I guess that defeats the purpose. But, it stops the crowing. I'm tempted to try it with my next hatch

I never had roosters, so I never turned one up side down. I also never butchered any to do exploratory procedures. Please help me out to understand a little better. Are those marbles kind of exposed and danging ??? Like on a dog or cat. ? Or are they concealed internally ? I read about capons on Wikipedia, but there were no details given. Only that it had to be done before 10 weeks.