Man, I know what you mean about feed bills. I was going to hatch more this summer and several factors put the breaks on and one of the biggest was the feed bill! On the plus side you have a good group of boys to choose from. All of the advice you have gotten is excellent.
I would add that you should look at the girls and see what you need to improve on with them. If they are all really small you may want to prioritize large size in the male. If they have gigantic crests and want smaller ones then a smaller crested male gets priority. You run the risk of fixing traits you don't want into your flock if you have that same unwanted trait in the male and female. Go for balance, or choose to improve the next generation.
The banding is really a great idea. This year I hatched 6 boys in one clutch and weighed them and banded on hatch day. I went back to them in 2 weeks and reweighed and looked very carefully at their structure, especially the shape of the head and whether the comb was straight or whether it was pushed to one side at the back or whether it had a fold at the front. I made notes in my book on each one and put an X for cull (4 of them) or wrote keep next to the ones (2) I would consider keeping--purely as a gut-feeling. Fyi-Color is not important to me at this time as I am working more on type.
I have come back to them at 14 weeks and looked once again reweighing and assessing color and type. It may be random happenstance, but I will cull 3 of the 4 that were marked cull, two are maybes (one was in the cull and one in the maybe keep) and the one boy I for sure want to keep is one of the 2 keepers I had picked. So based on my notes, I would have kept the one I like the best now. I will be tracking the next batch due to hatch next week and see how accurate my gut feel is this time.
So I guess I am trying to say
1) figure out what traits are important to you so you can better prioritize the traits and boys you want to keep
2) keep notes as you go so that you can track how they develop and learn early tells that will allow you to eliminate the boys early on.
eta: I like this boy pictured because his back looks long and his comb looks decent. As others have mentioned, the larger the crest the more likely it will deflect the blade of the comb off to the side at the back. The one boy I am going to keep has a medium crest, but it its farther back on his skull and doesn't seem to be impacting the comb, thankfully. This is something I was able to see at 2 weeks old.
I can't wait for them to be shipped!
I believe one of your girls looks similar to the pullet I posted. How many are you getting? She told me she was shipping you out some birds, Ill be anxiously awaiting to see some pics of the ones you got.
