Are banty roo's worth butchering?

[Milliemay]

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I ended up with about 10 banty roosters, was wondering if they are worth messing with for eating? Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[cassie]

People butcher quail and they are smaller than bantams, I think. You can butcher them and simmer them with garlic, onions, bayleaf, and peppercorns and then make salad or soup or any number of good things.

 

[Emzyyy]

Oh but Banty roosters are the best pets their adorable

 

[UncleHoot]

I have a free banty roo to anyone who will eat it.

He attacks my legs at every opportunity. When the weather is cold, and I wear my boots, it's funny. But with the warm weather, and me in shorts and shoes half of the time, I have no patience for him drawing blood. I have scars all around my ankle. I've tried being nice. I've tried being mean. Neither approach seems to work.

Yep, he's adorable, though. At least from 20 feet away or more.

(He's a Japanese Buff)

 

[reesepoultry]

Quote:
I had a silver sebright like that. I sold him and shipped him to Missouri. if I wouldn't have sold Him he would have become dinner.

 

[Jonathanq1]

maybe for soup not much meat in a banty

 

[Cuban Longtails]

I've got two waiting for the crock pot, and many more being raised by hens out on the yard.

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

I also have two waiting for me to "get to it" and process them. They were dumped over my fence. Not very big but should be tasty.

 

[TexasVet]

As a rule, they're only good to eat when they're young. Once they reach breeding age, the meat turns dark, gamey, and stringy. I butchered a nasty little Seabright once, and then stewed him for hours. The longer I cooked him, the tougher he got! The meat was so dark and tough that my dog wouldn't even eat him.

So now I butcher them as soon as they start crowing. If they're older than that, I kill them and toss them out in the field for the buzzards.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.CountryChickens.com

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I should think that most of them are worth butchering. I don't know much about the differences between the different breeds, but know that silkies are supposed to have dark-colored bones & meat. I have lots of mixed-breed bantams & have reached my limit of pretty little pet roos to keep. I'm not going to set any more bantam eggs for a while just so I don't have little roosters to deal with.

But I butchered a bantam last time I did a few other big birds, he weighed a pound after skinning & cleaning. He was easy to handle, skin & clean out and made a nice break between all the other big roosters. They were all about 20 weeks old & as meaty as they were going to get. I quartered them all & simmered them very slowly in herbed water for a few hours, then pulled the meat for use in other dishes. Everyone was tender & tasty.

I do have an extremely tiny Dutch bantam pair someone gave to me that we're going to keep around. I don't think he will cause problems with the other roos, and really is too small to make it worth the effort to process. As long as he continues to behave himself he can stay out of the soup pot.