Day-old cockerel

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In falconry, a day-old cockerel or DOC is a recently-hatched male chicken of a breed which is bred for egg-laying, but its males are no use for rearing for eating as roasting chicken. They are available in large numbers as a by-product of commercial rearing of laying hens, and have greatly simplified the problem of where to get feed for falconry birds.

Their guts still contain a quantity of yolk of the egg that they developed from. Many falconers prefer to remove this yolk before feeding the DOC to the raptor.

Many falconers prefer to intersperse the DOCs with food more nutritious per volume such as rats or quails.

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