Black/blue sexlinks as meat birds? 🤔

[Kennas_Kritters]

I was wondering if a blue/black sexlink would make a good meat chicken? I am wanting to raise some roosters up for food so if I can use a breed I already have at home that would be great. I know I CAN use them as a meat bird but would they make a good one? What age would they be ready for butcher? How much does the average SL rooster weigh before and after butchering? My sexlinks are from a EE rooster over BR hens. I have hatched some R.I.R X EE as well and I believe both of those are cockerals so maybe they could be used as well? We use the chickens to feed us and all of our dogs. I'm not new to butchering chickens though it feels that way lol. (I'm 18 now and haven't butchered a chicken since I was 13 or 14. 😬) I know all I need to know to butcher them... I just need to know if sexlinks or EE X R.I.R is a good bird for meat? Any body ever raised these for butchering? Any info on them helps. Thanks!

 

[ladybrasa]

Certainly you can use those for meat as you said, however if you are looking for, well, a meaty chicken, they might not be. EEs are bred for eggs. Depending where you got the RIR and BR from, those are technically dual purpose, but many places lean breeding toward egg production not meat. Don’t quote me, but nowadays I think only heritage versions of those breeds would be more meaty. Also I would guess they would be ready 3-6 months, so if you are looking for feed efficiency and all that … I have no idea …

That said, it you already have the birds, wouldn’t hurt to try a few out and see what happens? Maybe there will be some interesting hybrid vigor or something.

 

[Parront]

I was wondering if a blue/black sexlink would make a good meat chicken? I am wanting to raise some roosters up for food so if I can use a breed I already have at home that would be great. I know I CAN use them as a meat bird but would they make a good one? What age would they be ready for butcher? How much does the average SL rooster weigh before and after butchering? My sexlinks are from a EE rooster over BR hens. I have hatched some R.I.R X EE as well and I believe both of those are cockerals so maybe they could be used as well? We use the chickens to feed us and all of our dogs. I'm not new to butchering chickens though it feels that way lol. (I'm 18 now and haven't butchered a chicken since I was 13 or 14. 😬) I know all I need to know to butcher them... I just need to know if sexlinks or EE X R.I.R is a good bird for meat? Any body ever raised these for butchering? Any info on them helps. Thanks!

I would only eat those males because they would come from hatching sex-link layers of pretty eggs. You could sell the pullets, making the roosters a lot cheaper. A guy on here raising Cornish-X and Red Rangers averaged over 7 pounds dressed weight in 8 weeks, my 12 week olds here dressed to 2-3 pounds. Not feed efficient, but what happens if you buy straight run or hatch. I would rather eat them than waste them.

 

[RUNuts]

I know I CAN use them as a meat bird but would they make a good one?

Define good.

You will get a chicken. Compared to CX, they will be slower to grow out, smaller, tastier and tougher than mushy CX. Do you free range as this will lower your feed cost? Are you cost sensitive?

Please define your goals better. If you want a chicken to eat, yes this is good.

I raised/am raising EE x sexlink crosses and getting cockerels to eat. Not large, but good for me.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I was wondering if a blue/black sexlink would make a good meat chicken?

Yes, what do you consider a good meat chicken? There is nothing magical about sex links. Them being sex links has nothing to do with how well they lay or how good they are to eat. All sex links means is you can tell the sex of the chicks when they hatch. other than that, sex links are just chickens.

I know I CAN use them as a meat bird but would they make a good one?

For thousands of years people have been raising chickens for meat and eggs. For pretty much all that time they were not "meat birds" but basically barnyard mutts. So you are right, you can eat them but "good" is so subjective, it means different things to different people.

What age would they be ready for butcher?

That depends on what you want and your circumstances. How do you want to cook them, a cockerel's age at butcher has a lot to do with how you can cook them. How are you feeding them? If you are buying all their food instead of them mostly foraging you may want to stop buying feed sooner. Some people butcher at 12, 14, 16 or some other amount of weeks. My personal preference is 23 weeks. It depends on what you want.

How much does the average SL rooster weigh before and after butchering?

That depends on his genetics and the size of his parents, plus when you butcher him. You can make bantam sex links, they aren't going to be very big. In general the cockerel will get size genetics from both his mother and father. The size of his father and his mother's father can give you some clues but that's only clues. Each one can still be quite different.

My sexlinks are from a EE rooster over BR hens. I have hatched some R.I.R X EE as well and I believe both of those are cockerals so maybe they could be used as well? We use the chickens to feed us and all of our dogs. I'm not new to butchering chickens though it feels that way lol. (I'm 18 now and haven't butchered a chicken since I was 13 or 14. 😬) I know all I need to know to butcher them... I just need to know if sexlinks or EE X R.I.R is a good bird for meat? Any body ever raised these for butchering? Any info on them helps. Thanks!

Basically what I'm saying is that there in no answer to your questions. There is nothing magical about sex links other than you can tell the sex of the chicks at hatch. We all have our own definition of "good", mine will be different from most other people. We all have to find our own way,

If you can tell us what "good" means to you we might be able to help you better. My main suggestion is to try it and see what you think. Find out what you like or don't like about them. Then maybe you can better understand what may be important or not and ask more specific questions.

Good luck.

 

[Mosey2003]

An Easter Egger sexlink would not be my choice if I were looking for males to butcher. They'll compare to any other hatchery egg layer male size-wise, EE's are not large birds typically.

If you were using large Barred Rock hens and a nice large RIR or NH male, you'd get very nice butcher males in 16-20 weeks.

 

[Xouie]

If you want big table birds, those probably aren’t it. But extra cockerels of any breed make excellent tacos after slow/pressure cooking. I’ve got a few EE tacos growing now. I wait til point of crow; that seems to be when there is a decent amount of meat but still tender.

 

[Parront]

Yesterday someone asked me if I name my little roosters that are still growing. I told her they are all named "Nugget". They get cubed and canned when I have too many to freeze, those cubes are great nuggets!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Based on my readings, the best that can be said about them is that, on average, BSL will be better "meat birds" than RSLs. But no, don't expect fast weight gain, large size, or good feed efficiency. The primary purpose of a Sex Link bird is to select females for laying, and they are largely optimized for that purpose.

Edible? Absolutely. Subject to all the usual rules re: taste and texture relative to how they are raised, and age of culling.

Would not be my first, second, or third choice. But if your are breeding your own BSL and want to eat the males, by all means, do so - just don't expect a big bird at a young age for the table.

 

[NatJ]

We use the chickens to feed us and all of our dogs.

The dogs shouldn't care if the meat is tough, but chickens do grow fastest in the first few weeks. So it might be more efficient (feed cost) to dispatch the birds for dog food at a fairly young age (8 weeks or even less.) Or it might be more efficient (your time) to dispatch the birds at an older age, when they are larger so you don't have to handle as many birds to get the same number of pounds of meat.

I have butchered male chicks, even bantams, as young as 4-5 weeks, when I needed more space in the pen. There is not much meat on each bird at that age, but it does add up when you have a lot of them. And if your dogs eat the whole entire bird, your time to "butcher" would be very different than if you need to pluck or skin, remove guts, and cut up the bird (which is the way people usually want it.)

Some people like to raise many birds to a large size, have one big butchering day, and then freeze the chickens. Some other people like to butcher a few birds at a time, as they want to cook them. If you like to butcher a few at a time, then you can try them at several different ages and see what works best for you.

You might be happier culling the sexlink males at hatch (maybe feed them to the dogs?), and buying Cornish Cross chicks that will grow big and fast. Or you might be happier raising up your sexlink cockerels and eating them. Or you might even do a combination, perhaps raising a batch of Cornish Cross if you don't have enough sexlink cockerels to produce the right amount of meat for your needs.

For actual feed-to-meat conversion, when free ranging is not an option, Cornish Cross are usually the best. For all other purposes, "best" depends on who is deciding.