Tomorrow evening, “processing” 4 roosters is on the schedule.  We say processing because it just sounds better than butchering, but the outcome is the same.  We have both been struggling with this, just like we did last year when we had to cull 3 roosters.  Maybe we just aren’t cut out to be real chicken farmers and actually eat some of our chickens.  It is difficult not to remember the sweet little chicks that hopped up on our fingers and followed us around looking for treats.  We have 7 roosters now and that is just not going to work out well as they get older.  They are already picking on each other and the guineas quite a lot.  We have our original rooster, Percy, and a Maran and a Rhode Island Red from this year’s chicks that we want to keep, and so the rest have to go.  We could give them to someone else but most likely they would butcher them as well and who knows how they would be treated up until then.  Roosters don’t really have much of a chance in this world.  Most of the ones born in large hatcheries are killed right away because most people want only hens and who can blame them?  Things are indeed much more peaceful in the chicken yard without a rooster trying to attack you.  We do want to keep the 3 we have decided on in order to raise more chicks to keep adding new layers to our flocks, so there will be other roosters to “process” in the coming years.  I try to make myself feel better by thinking that if these roosters had been born anywhere else they most likely would have been killed months ago, but it doesn’t really help much.  I can’t look at them today; or maybe I should go look at them.  Maybe I will just let them out of their yard so they can run away.