There are a few words you can say in a chicken group if you're looking to start a fight. “Cull” is definitely one of them.
Mention that you culled a rooster from your breeding pen and somebody will inevitably react as though you just announced that you murdered Kevin in the driveway. Maybe you processed that rooster. Or maybe Kevin is currently living three pens over, eating your feed and contributing absolutely nothing to the breeding program.
Because here's the thing: cull does not automatically mean kill. And understanding the difference matters, especially if you're breeding chickens, managing multiple flocks, or simply trying to make responsible decisions about the birds in your care.
What Does “Cull” Actually Mean?
In chicken keeping, culling means selecting and removing a bird from a particular flock, group, or breeding population. What happens to that bird afterward depends on the situation.
A bird might be moved to another pen. It might be removed from a breeding program but remain on the property. It might be sold or rehomed. It could be processed for food. In some situations, a bird may be humanely euthanized because of illness or injury.
Those are very different outcomes, but all of them are culling. That's why hearing someone say, “I culled this bird,” doesn't tell you what happened to the chicken. You need the rest of the sentence.
Words mean things.
Culling Is a Normal Part of Responsible Breeding
If you're breeding chickens with a purpose, you have to make decisions about which birds should reproduce. You can't simply hatch chicks, keep every bird in the breeding pen, and call it a breeding program. Well, I suppose you can, but that's reproduction, not selection.
A responsible breeder evaluates birds based on the goals of the breeding program. That can include health, vigor, structure, temperament, fertility, breed characteristics, functional traits, and genetic diversity. Depending on the breed and your goals, some traits matter more than others.
And here's something that gets lost in conversations about culling: a bird doesn't have to be sick, deformed, aggressive, or otherwise “bad” to be culled from a breeding program. It may simply not be a bird you want to breed.
We see this in our own breeding decisions. With our Swedish Flower Hens, for example, I don't want to select toward excessively large crests that can interfere with a bird's vision. I can have a perfectly healthy, beautiful chicken that I decide doesn't belong in that particular breeding program. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the chicken. It means that isn't a trait I want to intentionally pass forward.
The bird has been culled from the breeding program. The chicken has not necessarily been culled from planet Earth.
Sometimes Culling Means Moving a Chicken
This is probably the part that surprises people the most. I can cull a rooster from one breeding pen and put him in a bachelor flock. I can remove a hen from a breeding group and move her into a layer flock. I can decide a particular pairing isn't giving me what I want and reorganize my breeding groups. All of those birds have been removed from the group they were previously part of, and none of them had to leave the farm.
Flock dynamics can be another reason to make changes. Sometimes two birds simply don't work well together. A rooster may be too rough with particular hens. A bird may be relentlessly bullied. Two males that were getting along may decide their peace treaty has officially expired. Changing the flock arrangement can sometimes solve the problem without the bird ever leaving your property.
Sometimes the best place for a chicken is simply somewhere else.
Rehoming Can Be Culling Too
Sometimes a bird doesn't fit your flock but may be a great fit for somebody else's. Maybe you have more roosters than you can responsibly manage. Maybe a bird doesn't fit your breeding program. Maybe you're changing breeds, reducing flock size, or you simply have a bird that would work better somewhere else. Selling or responsibly rehoming that bird removes it from your flock, which is also a form of culling.
We do rehome some of our birds, including roosters. The handsome guy in this photo recently left our farm for a new home, and I'm always happy when I can match one of our boys with somebody who actually wants and has a place for him.
But that's not where most of our extra roosters go.
There simply aren't enough people looking for roosters to provide homes for all the males that are hatched. We breed chickens, which means we hatch roosters. Usually a lot of them. I can't keep every one of them, and I don't believe passing that responsibility down the line by desperately trying to find any available home is necessarily better animal husbandry. Most of our excess roosters are raised here and eventually processed for our freezer, or go to a livestock auction where they are most likely processed.
That's part of how we choose to manage our farm.
Other chicken keepers may make different choices, and that's fine. Rehoming can be a wonderful outcome when the right home exists. But if you're planning to hatch eggs or buy straight-run chicks, you need a realistic plan for the males that doesn't depend entirely on finding someone else who wants them. There are already far more roosters needing homes than there are homes looking for roosters.
And dumping a chicken at somebody's farm, releasing one at a park, or leaving a rooster somewhere because you couldn't find him a home isn't rehoming. It's abandonment.
It's also a dick move.
Sometimes Culling Does Mean Processing
We also don't need to dance around this part. Chickens are livestock as well as companion animals, and many people raise them as part of a food-producing flock. For those keepers, processing birds for meat may be one possible outcome of culling.
That doesn't make somebody cruel or mean they don't care about their animals. Responsible livestock keeping includes providing good care while the animal is alive and, when that animal is processed, handling that responsibility as humanely as possible.
You don't have to make the same choices another chicken keeper makes. Some people keep every bird until it dies naturally. Some maintain retirement flocks. Some rehome birds that no longer fit their needs. Some raise chickens for eggs and meat. What bothers me is when we pretend that only one of those approaches can possibly be responsible.
The better question isn't, “Did you cull the bird?” It's, “Was the bird treated responsibly?”
A Sick Chicken Doesn't Automatically Need to Be Culled
This is one place where blanket advice can cause more harm than good. Finding a sick chicken does not automatically mean you should euthanize it.
A bird showing signs of illness may need to be isolated while you figure out what's going on. Depending on the problem, treatment may be possible. A veterinarian who treats poultry can be incredibly valuable, especially when you're dealing with something potentially contagious or you're unsure what you're seeing.
There are situations where a bird may need to be permanently removed from a breeding program because of a health problem you don't want to perpetuate. There are also diseases and flock-health situations where removing affected birds may be part of disease control. But “that chicken looks sick, so cull it” is not a diagnosis or a responsible disease-management plan.
Figure out what you're dealing with first whenever circumstances allow.
Sometimes the Kindest Decision Sucks
Sometimes a chicken is badly injured. Sometimes there's an illness that can't be successfully treated. Sometimes a bird is suffering and recovery isn't realistically possible. In those situations, humane euthanasia may be the kindest decision available.
Keeping an animal alive at all costs isn't automatically kinder than euthanasia. When a bird is suffering with no reasonable path to recovery, prolonging that suffering because we don't want to make the difficult decision can become more about what makes us feel better than what's best for the chicken.
That decision can suck. It can also be the responsible one.
Older Hens Aren't Automatically on the Chopping Block
Older hens often lay fewer eggs as they age. In a production-focused flock, declining productivity may be one factor a keeper considers when deciding which birds to retain. That doesn't mean every hen gets handed an eviction notice when her egg production drops.
How you manage older birds depends on why you keep chickens in the first place. A production farm, breeding program, homestead, and backyard pet flock may all make different decisions, and that's okay.
Around here, retirement benefits include room and board. Frankly, the pension plan is pretty damn good.
Other people manage their flocks differently. What matters is thinking about this before your coop is full of aging hens rather than pretending chickens remain at peak production forever. If you're going to keep retired birds, plan for them. If you're raising chickens as livestock and have different plans, be honest with yourself about those too.
Culling Doesn't Make Someone a Bad Chicken Keeper
Keeping chickens responsibly does not mean keeping every bird you've ever hatched for the rest of its natural life. And simply culling birds doesn't automatically make somebody a responsible keeper either.
Culling looks different depending on the flock and the reason a bird is being removed. A breeder removing a bird from a breeding program, a homesteader processing a bird for food, and someone moving a rooster into a bachelor flock are all making very different decisions, even though the word “cull” can apply to all three. That's why the word alone doesn't tell you nearly enough to decide what actually happened.
Responsible chicken keeping means making decisions based on the individual bird, the flock, your goals, your resources, and the situation in front of you. Sometimes that means moving a chicken to another pen. Sometimes it means finding another home. Sometimes it means removing a bird from your breeding program and letting her spend the rest of her life eating your feed while contributing absolutely nothing to the breeding program.
And sometimes the humane decision is the one you wish you didn't have to make.
Not every responsible decision feels good.
🐔
Some birds leave the pen
Not every cull means goodbye
Choose with care, not fear
