The age of the bird doesn't matter as long as you're aware that most older birds, especially males, will take a different method of cooking to soften. But the nutrition's still there and in my experience the older birds are better flavored by far.
As for culling him, I would just like to offer anecdotal experience of ours: one of our toms took to the wing once his head was off. Luckily we'd restrained his wings, but he was free of it in a second, and only the fact that he was bound in the first place gave us enough time to catch his corpse before it flew off into a forest infested with feral invasive pests that would have been most grateful for the free dinner. Since then we've restrained all larger bird's wings, i.e. geese and turkeys, because not a few begin to fly as soon as the head's off. As previously mentioned, 10 months is not old, around 2 years is when they start to noticeably toughen, generally speaking. Around 6 months or younger is more tender but less flavorsome.
As for culling him, I would just like to offer anecdotal experience of ours: one of our toms took to the wing once his head was off. Luckily we'd restrained his wings, but he was free of it in a second, and only the fact that he was bound in the first place gave us enough time to catch his corpse before it flew off into a forest infested with feral invasive pests that would have been most grateful for the free dinner. Since then we've restrained all larger bird's wings, i.e. geese and turkeys, because not a few begin to fly as soon as the head's off. As previously mentioned, 10 months is not old, around 2 years is when they start to noticeably toughen, generally speaking. Around 6 months or younger is more tender but less flavorsome.
