Gamey EE roo?

[MommaBugg]

I culled my fave EE roo a couple weeks ago, he was about 7 months old. Turned out to be too aggressive with my girls. He was rather gamey, and the darkmeat on him was VERY dark brown. Darker than darkmeat on a turkey. Did I wait too long to butcher? Or is this normal for an EE ? Also dispite how heavy he was pre slaughter, he was rather scrawny. Not much meat on his breast or legs. He had bones like rocks though. He was about 8 pounds of feathers and bones.

 

[kfacres]

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yup, that's what you get when you deal with raising DP type chickens... feathers and bones in a scrawny, meat lacking, feed eating package...

 

[MommaBugg]

OK I am new to this culling for meat thing.. I always just had laying hens.. whats DP?

 

[Blooming chicks]

DP= Dual purpose. Used for both meat and eggs.

 

[MommaBugg]

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AH! Thanks! I am looking into Jersey Giants.. how are they for meat?

 

[Lollipop]

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AH! Thanks! I am looking into Jersey Giants.. how are they for meat?

They get real big, but are slow growers........Pop

 

[kfacres]

big and slow growing, 99% of the time is not a good thing.. that means, more food intake required...

read my BYC page in regards to meat type chickens.

 

[MommaBugg]

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THANKS!

 

[Illia]

I'm sorry but some people are very opinionated and pretty pro-commercialized meat varieties

Yes, it is normal for the dark meat to be pretty dark especially if he was aggressive or free ranging, and yes, it is normal for him to be scrawny or dissatisfying in terms of meat qualities. Easter Eggers aren't bred for dual purpose nor meat or size, so naturally you'll come across a LOT that are just as good of meat birds as your run of the mill Australorp or Barred Rock.

Yes, dual purpose birds grow slower and eat more than Cornish X, but not all are skinny packages. Ya just gotta choose the right breed and most importantly, the right breeding.

 

[Avalon1984]

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I raise dual purpose chickens too and cannot complain about the meat ratio whatsoever. These are my leftovers from incubating and I don't mind raising them for I enjoy them quite a bit. To me this is how a normal chicken is supposed to look like. Mine had great breastmeat, I loved it, and oh those wings

In fact, some of my customers prefer this type chicken to the one in the super market. To the OP, what did you feed your rooster? Also, did you have more roosters around him? Was he maybe stressed out?