So many of you guys are just getting into raising chickens. Uh, maybe some of you guys have watched our beginner's guide to raising backyard chickens. Um, maybe you have your flock of laying hens and you have a rooster and you're on the path to self sustainability. Like we are where you want to have a self-maintaining flock. The question becomes what the heck do you do with all the roosters?

Right? So let's talk about three different options for dealing with extra roosters. Whenever you're raising out chicks, you're going to have about a 50% hatch rate of roosters to hens. Now, hens are easy to deal with. You can have them for laying hens, or you can say they sell pretty well. Well, roosters tend to be hard to get rid of. So the first option is to raise them up for your own consumption. This is something that we've done ourselves. We have raised up roosters and called them off and consume them ourselves. Um, the downside to that is you can't have raised too many roosters without having a separate Pendin area. Otherwise there's a whole lot of fights. Uh, the second is that you have to raise them for about 12 months before they are of a decent size to have a nice meal. These guys behind me are about 11 weeks and tiller dress down.

It would probably only feed a Lauria. And then the third part is that whenever you raise up a rooster, they about to about a year old, uh, they do have really good flavor, but you do have to cook them for a long time. So either pressure cook them or can them, you can't just throw them in the oven, um, or they're going to be pretty, pretty, uh, tough. So what are some other options, if you don't have the ability to raise them up for your own consumption, or if you don't want to do that? Well, the second option is to sell them direct. Um, this is something that we've done fairly recently. We posted ads on like Craigslist and some of the local newspapers, and we sold a bunch of laying hands and only a couple. Cockerels not too many people, like I said, really want to buy cockerels.

And finally, the third way is something that we're fairly new to, which is auctions. This is a great way to get rid of livestock that you don't want when you can't shell direct. These guys are going to go to auction tonight. Now, why am I choosing to send these to auctions? One, I want to know what the market rate is for these guys. And two, I don't have the separate fenced in area. Like I said, to raise these guys up for our own consumption and three, I haven't been able to sell these guys direct. So what I'm going to do with these roosters as I'm going to box them up and we're going to take them to auction tonight. So for those of you guys that are new to auctions, let's talk a little bit about, uh, what to expect now. Livestock auctions are typically in rural areas.

Uh, you're probably not going to find them in urban or suburban areas. So you're probably going to have to travel to some rural County. And once you get there, there are, there are typically found in most towns. Uh, usually throughout the summers, they usually have them once a week. Um, you just have to search in the newspaper and find out where your local livestock auctions are. When you get there, you're going to have to register. Typically you have to bring your driver's license and secure yourself, uh, an auction number. And this allows you to both purchase and sell the livestock. And then you need to find out, uh, some of the selling rules. So for selling poultry at the auction that we are going to, we can't just throw them in a cardboard box and bring them in. They have to be in a more secured box as this, uh, fruit crate.

Uh, they do sell fruit crates at our auction, um, for a dollar a piece. Um, I got this one from a neighbor who just so happened to have a bunch of them, but this is what we're going to put, put our cockerels in and we just lined it with hay and then we're going to bring them into the auction. Now, the other thing you need to know is how much the auctioneer takes for, uh, selling your, your livestock. Um, at the auction that we go to, uh, they do a flat rate for animals, such as goats and pigs, and, uh, any of the larger animals, but for poultry ducks, geese, chickens, that kind of thing, they typically do about a 20% fee for selling it. So you need to consider that whenever going in these guys, like I said, are about 11 weeks old. What really sells well at auctions are bigger birds.

Full-size take, you're going to sell registers. Full-sized cockerels tend to sell the best. Uh, the reason for that is most livestock meds brought to auctions. Uh, when it's purchased, it's purchased typically for consumption purposes. So people who are buying them want to consume them as soon as they get them home or within the next week, month or so. So, uh, selling bigger animals tends to bring in more money. I will probably be lucky to get about five to $8 out of these guys. So obviously the better options here for selling live or the better option here for dealing with roosters is for your own consumption or for selling direct, which brings me to the last point where auctions are typically, um, a last resort for offloading, some sort of livestock. So just keep that in mind, whenever, uh, you, you go to an auction and especially if you are considering purchasing anything there at an auction, it's typically, you know, buyer beware for whatever, whatever you do purchase at an auction.

So the other thing with auctions is when you do drop off your livestock, certain type of options will allow you to just drop them off and leave. They have your driver's license on file. So they know, um, you know, how much money that they owe you. The downside is, is sometimes people lose track of how much money a year item sold for. So it's better that you sit there through the whole auction and you keep track of what that item sold for so that you can make sure that you collect the appropriate amount from the auctioneer. So the other benefit of sitting there at an auction and not just dropping your livestock off and walking away is that you can do a no sale. I know sale is where, uh, if your livestock comes up for bid and say, if people only bid like a dollar four for each of your Cox, and you don't want to sell them that low, you can always do a no sale where you end up taking it back home with you. So these are just different options for you guys. I know a lot of you guys are just getting into chickens and maybe wonder what the heck do I do with all these roosters, uh, maybe you've even gone on Craigslist and saw people giving them away. Uh, obviously you can do that as well. Um, but the better option here is to try and make a few bucks off of it because those few dollars can go towards feed or medicine or anything else for raising and continuing to raise your livestock.

All right. So our Cockrell sold for about $8 and 50 cents each, uh, until they take their commissioners, it's about $6 and 80 cents. Um, like I said, you don't make a whole lot of money when you take things to auction. Typically, especially if it's a juvenile such as a 11 week old Cockrell, but it is a way to offload livestock. So you don't have to continue to pay feed for something. So that's what we did. And that was our, uh, that was our final tally for our silver-gray dorking 11 week old restaurateurs.