Are Delewares good meat birds?

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poultryhaven

poultryhaven

Addicted to Seramas!
12 Years
Jan 19, 2009
2,018
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Ocala, FL
I had 20 Delewares hatch and I plan on eating the extra roosters. I have seen the Father, He is HUGE lol. Do they matre slowly? What age should I process them?
 
You should be able to get a good size bird at about 16-22 weeks. They are a well proportioned DP breed they should average around 4 lbs dressed in that time frame.
 
Wow, Thank you
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HEY POULTRY HAVEN,

Where did you get those Delawares from?

It is my understanding that Heritiage Delawares will be MUCH bigger and meater than Hatchery stock.

Delawares are SPECKLEDHEN speciality. She has the Heritage type.
 
I can tell you that I've only processed one Delaware cockerel. It wasn't planned; he just decided that Freezer Camp looked inviting and proceeded to be a butthead. Anyway, he wasn't as large as my current rooster, but at 24 weeks, he had a nice meaty breast and was absolutely delicious. Now, if I'd been planning to process him all along, I'd have fattened him up looking to that end, but it was fabulous flavored meat just the same. If you get deep bodied stock, you'll have a good meat bird, though obviously not CornishX type.
 
Quote:
Thank you Speckledhen
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I have never proccessed a bird but im going to watch someone do it today and im really hoping to eat some food that I grow. I like it a lot better than getting it from a store. Are they dark or light meat? If that makes sense lol
 
They are a typical white / dark meat. When I said they were well proportioned that's what I meant, I probably should have clarified. Cornish x's have a lot more white meat then dark, however your Delawares will have a good balance of white and dark. Should be about 50% white and 50% dark.

Delawares are great meat though, you will be happy with them.
 
I processed four of mine at 19 weeks- the man who processed them said one was pretty good, but they could all have used about 4 more weeks of growth. However, I wasn't thinking of processing them, like Cynthia said, if I had I would have put them in a small run and purposefully fattened them up a bit- mine have a huge run and play off a lot of what they eat.
I'll try to pm you or find this thread when we try one out in a couple of weeks-
 
Thank you Brunty_Farms, Im new at the meat bird stuff
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I was thinking about Cornish X's but I rather do a heritage breed first
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Also, the extra males, Should I put them in a seperate pen and feed them Broiler feed? If so how old should they be when I start feeding it to them?
Im thinking about processing them at 20 to 21 weeks old
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