mean rooster

Even if you don't eat him, as in eating a roasted chicken, still, the carcass makes awesome chicken broth/stock.  Yup, the older, the better, almost, for broth flavor.  The meat can be pulled, if you wish.  You can also feed the meat to a cat or other pet, if you wish.  Waste not, want not.  Slow cooking is the key.  Crock pot?  Pressure cooker for faster results.

I dont think that the silkies are best for eating, I heard from a friend that birds with black skin don't taste to good.

Anything older then a year then it starts to smell, but if you cook the roo in the oven at a low temp for a few hours then it will taste pretty good. 

An older bird just needs to be cooked a long time and with moisture (think soup) or in a pressure cooker.  An older bird won't be as tender as a young bird (the typical meat chick), but they have more of a true chicken flavor.

Yes silkies have black skin, it's thought of as a specialty/medicinal in asian cooking and costs more to buy.  I've never eaten it, but the taste should be just the same.  The color might be somewhat off putting if you are squeamish.

I just roasted one of our extra cockerels tonight for dinner (although he was only a few months old and a BCM), yum.

I have a yard FULL of cockerels right now getting ready to move into freezer camp.   I've had batches of chicks that were 7 boys to one girl.  I see a lot of chicken dinners in our future.

Deb