20wk old BO boys - process or wait?

[Sunny Side Up]

Is the bird on the plate the same bird in your avatar? It looks funny to see the photo of the rooster looking at the skinned chicken on the plate.

Did you decide to let the other roo grow out a bit more? It will be interesting to see how much bigger he got in the extra time he had.

Raising standards for meat isn't usually an economically beneficial endeavor. I try to let mine free-range as much as possible, and give them as much freebies as I can to feed them. If I were going to buy meat birds I'd probably try something like the Freedom Rangers or similar breeds that grow big but are easier to raise than CXs. But most of my meaties are surplus mixed-breeds my hens hatch out, or standards that other people give to me. I've learned to caponize and am trying to see if that makes a difference in how beefy these boys turn out at the end.

 

[Stefrobrts]

Oh dear, that looks bad! No, that's one of the hens in the avatar

I'm just raising the chickens for eggs, but now I'm playing with a 'lemon' blue/buff mix. This boy came out buff and black, so he didn't make the cut. I am going to have two groups this year - buff O hens and my blue rooster, to produce more blue/buff, and a flock of last year's blue/buff hens. The other young roo turned out to be buff with a blue tail, so I decided to keep him to put with the blue/buff hens. I'm interested to see how the chicks turn out.

Unfortunately extra roosters are a side effect of playing around with hatching chicks, so I really wanted to learn to process the extras. Last year I probably gave away 15 roosters because I didn't know how to process them and felt too busy to learn, so I really wanted to take the time this winter to learn how to do it so we could take advantage of that extra meat.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

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That's great, and very smart too. That's something everyone who hatches chicks needs to have made plans in advance for, just what to do with all those extra roos. The reality of life for roosters is that a good 90% of all those hatched have their purpose on a plate.

 

[PunkinPeep]

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I disagree. I have butchered my dual purpose birds at several different ages, and i find about 19 weeks to give me lots of meat and wonderful flavor and texture. The flavor of birds that are free ranged for all those weeks is magnificent.

No, it isn't as much meat as something you would buy in the grocery store. But it's so much better!