[StacieB]

Where are you located?

[bee70]

Stacy, I’m 13 miles south of Cumberland Md in WV (mineral co)

[Shadow526]

We knew, when we first got our first batch of chicks, that we’d get a few roosters. Out of 16 chicks, 11 were roosters!!!

We decided we’d butcher the roosters we didn’t need. I have a “seal – a – meal” and I DOUBLE sealed (2 bags) each rooster. For now, we will use these birds for food for our dogs for when we can no longer find dog food. (2 of our dogs are 100 lbs).

So….just a suggestion. Butcher your birds for future food.

[bee70]

I do butcher, and sell Thanksgiving birds for small familys. This year is tough, I have a surgery in Early sept that carrying water and bending my head over will be tough. Trying to save feed bill and my ability to care for them by flock reductions. Got some young chickens and older hens to go too. I am past freezing poultry; I can it. No power outages worries. Thanks for the reply!

[galtslittlehelper]

If you have 4H round there may find people that just In general want them. Sometimes I’ll go to my farmers coop an ask if they know anyone that wants critters. Same with vet clinic. Sometimes people round the garden center. If you know any teachers tell them an ask to spread the word. Women with cell phones are dang near magicians at gettin the word on stuff. If I was in your part of the world I’d buy them but im over near Ft Smith Arkansas

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  galtslittlehelper.

[bee70]

Thank you for the memory jog..sold some breeding birds last year to a nice man wanted them to get a group of kids interested. Time to call him and see if he needs more.

My old head is muddled with too much these days….

[PackersRboss]

unplug that incubator & cull the roosters. It’ll take you a few years to catch up financially. Post the chickens for sale at your local Farm & Fleet and at all Vet clinics within 100 miles. Find out where the Avian Vet clinics are & ask them to help.

It’s not just about getting rid of existing chickens…its about not creating new chickens.

[bee70]

thankyou for your reply; but I must admit to knowing “how they get here”. ..They are not pets and I have been butchering and eating home raised poultry for over 30 years. I am looking for ideas to get the word out for good quality rare breed turkey poults with an eye to making them less rare. As cheaply as possible of course. All replies folks are kind enough to send are carefully considered, thankyou

[PackersRboss]

Very few are going to share your interest in specialty breeds of turkeys. We are sitting at the cusp of a great depression 2.0 and no one is going to pay a higher-than-average price. You sound like you got yourself in over your head.

[bee70]

and you sound extremely judgemental . In the prepper community people prize poultry that will breed naturally and raise their own young. Negating the need to buy new stock each year. The standard large white turkeys that provide the fresh, frozen and ground turkey in the markets have to be fertilized by humans to reproduce as they have such large breasts that the tom can’t “connect” with the hen. The breed I raise can naturally breed, hatch and raise their own young. Like some breeds of chickens that go broody. Very handy on the homestead.

[Hanidu-Acres]

bee70 you are correct. Not everyone that is homesteading is focused on freedom/independence so there is a smaller market for heritage breeds. But the further we get pushed into a food crisis the more they will be in demand.

[bee70]

Thankyou, I do agree with both statements. I switch back and forth with the live poultry between having the ability to produce my own and the fact that their natural noise can alert ALL sorts of predators to their (and my) location.

[PackersRboss]

And you can’t pay your feed bills. So how is that good prepping? It’s not. Preppers are debt-free. We don’t get in over our heads. We don’t hoard.

[bee70]

I never said I couldn’t pay my feed bill, only that it was high and I wanted to reduce it. I never make a bill I can’t pay. Get a life, I am moving on.

[Templeton1]

i have the same problem , i can’t stand to see an egg just setting in the carton, but after hatching over 65-70 chicks and about 30 turkey poults, i slap my hand when i reach for them lol, right now i still have 20 something poults to sell, a friend is going to take them to another friend auction this month for me. the chicks i will keep for freezer camp as i’m getting low on chicken.

do you have any poultry swaps close to you that you could take them and try to sell them there, that way you could explain what they are if people don’t know, you’ld be surprised at how many people come looking for a turkey poult or a certain type of chicken.

good luck

[bee70]

thankyou!! I need to get googling for local swap possibilities! I am posting on boards at feed stores. Hoping to clear them before my surgery.

If you have a moment please post what breeds you are raising? You sound like you have been bitten by the poultry bug as bad as me!! Thanks again

[1898_Homestead]

If you are one Facebook you could advertise them on Marketplace. That way you can also give a good description of the birds as Heritage and what it means. Just a though. I pray your surgery goes well and does what you need it to do.

[bee70]

thank you…Marketplace is a possibility even tho I checked it out awhile ago and searched “live turkey”…lol! No live turkeys but pages of turkey mounts, decoys and ceramics.

The surgery is a full mouth teeth pull( only 12 left) and restoration of the bone ridges (full mouth) so I can wear plates. Surgeon told me I will look like a raccoon and take better than 30 days healing. If you have ever had anything done to head or face then you know what I expect it to feel like when I bend over or lift…thus the need to downsize prior.

If ever I could tell all children and young adults one thing to try to do…take care of your teeth.