Is there a difference in the flavor between male and female meat?
Interesting question. I'll give my opinion. I butcher cockerels, pullets, hens, and roosters so my opinion is based on what I've experienced. It would be interesting to hear about others' experiences.
Yes, both flavor and texture. The older they get the more texture all chickens develop. That's why the age of a chicken dictates how you can cook them. When we talk about age and cooking chickens we are pretty much talking about males or spent hens. Most people are not going to eat pullets.
When the hormones hit cockerels at puberty the texture of the meat changes. It gets more stringy. Also, they develop more connective tissue holding the inside of the skin to the carcass. A cockerel like a Cornish X butchered before puberty is extremely easy to skin. A five month old dual purpose cockerel is a bit more of a challenge. An old rooter is really hard to skin, you need a sharp knife to cut that connective tissue if you skin. So the older the male gets the more texture of the meat changes and the more connective tissue you have. They also have connective tissue, tendons and ligaments, that hold bones together or meat to bones. Those get stronger as they age also.
Females go through the same process but the hormones don't hit them all that hard as they age. An old hen will have more connective tissue than a pullet but they are still relatively easy to skin. The meat does develop texture as they age but that process is a lot slower than the males. At some point they may not have as much texture as a male the same age but it will be enough they need to be cooked like an old chicken.
When the hormones hit, cockerels develop more flavor. People call it a gamey taste. Again the older they get the more flavor they develop. It doesn't take that long for the difference to be noticeable in cockerels. I'm not going to give ages because some cockerels seem to start puberty by 12 weeks, some might wait until 5 or 6 months to start puberty. An old rooster will have a much stronger flavor than a cockerel that has recently developed to where he can breed, but that cockerel will have plenty of flavor.
Again, the females go through the same process but it's more gradual than the males. I don't think they ever get as strong-flavored as the older males but they do get stronger-flavored. Some people like that flavor, some don't. You can somewhat mask that flavor by how you cook it, different herbs and spices or serving it with other things like in soup or chicken and dumplings versus cooking it in a crock pot or pressure cooker and serving a chunk of meat. But it will still be stronger.
Another big difference between males and females is that females develop a lot of fat. Most of that is usually in the pelvic area in what is called a fat pad, but there is fat scattered throughout the rest of the body. If you want schmaltz you need to be butchering females, not males. My males are typically really lean. Some develop a little fat but it's nothing compared to a female.
I have not paid any attention to whether a male is crowing or not. Some male chicks can start trying to crow while in the brooder. Others might wait until they are several months old, if ever.
The only difference I've noticed with laying and non-laying pullets of the same age is that the ones laying will have yolks developing to make eggs. They will be various sizes, some big enough to make an egg, others growing. My dogs love those but you could eat them too if you wish. The pullets not laying have a mass of tiny ova but they are are really small.
