Dual purpose chickens

[Cody brown]

I hatch my dual purpose pullets and cockerels and eat both. My goals involve raising them to eat and to play with chicken genetics so I need to hatch a fair amount. I could probably sell my excess pullets but I just don't want to. It's easier for me to eat them. That way I don't have to hatch as many chicks or have the facilities to care for them.

I butcher my cockerels by 23 weeks. I usually keep the pullets until around 8 months of age, so i can see what eggs they lay before I decide which ones to keep. I rotate the older hens out on a three year rotation to keep the laying flock fresh. My "playing with genetics" goals require rotating girls and boys in and out too. So I also cook and eat my older chickens.

How old they are when you butcher them has a lot to do with how you cook them. There are many threads in this forum about that. When I was growing up on a farm Mom would tell me to bring her a chicken. I'd catch one and give her a plucked and gutted chicken. She's do the rest. She might fry a fairly young one but an old hen became chicken and dumplings. People that tell you that you can't cook old chickens just don't know how.

There is not much meat on a pullet or old hen, there just isn't. There are only two of us and I can still get two meals out of a pullet. I bake an 8-month-old pullet for one meal for Thursday, the second one is chicken soup with the leftover meat Saturday. The main difference between a pullet and cockerel for me is that I have leftover meat at lunch if it is a bigger cockerel. Mom could feed a family with five kids off of one small old hen. That's why she made chicken and dumplings, that stretches the meat. Soups and stews will stretch it too.

Thats so good, using as much meat as possible is good but an old hen feeding 5 kids. Wow . What age would you butcher cockrells and hens if you wanted nice tender meat for frying or roasting?

 

[De Bauer]

The French Bresse and Barbeziuex meat is rated to be the best tasting chickens when they are cooked a certain way. However, I think the Bresse eggs are larger. The Bresse chicken has larger breast meat and the Barbeziuex has larger leg and thighs. I decided to go with these for meat and eggs.

I just butchered some 5 month old Austrops, Buff Orpingtons, Jersey Giants and White Rhode Island roosters. They were kind of tough when deep batter fried, but were excellent for soup, strews and cold ginger chicken. They range from 3.50 to 4 lbs after plucked and gutted.

You know I see that same opinion everywhere about the bresse but the only real reviews of the meat I have seen from true volaille de Bresse were cooked in a high end restaurant. Most people would likely not be overly wowed by fully dry aged Waygu beef either if they were not told ahead of time what they were getting. Raw I bet 90% would think they got spoiled meat.

Nothing about the chickens breed is going to make the meat that much more tender compared to others at those ages. The caponing I think is a big part as is the fatting phase in effecting the meat quality.

I think if you roasted a Bresse it would be a bit tough. My guess is if you took another breed known for fine meat texture and followed the same diet and raising you would end up with the same quality. What they have done IMO is just put all the small pieces together. Low stress lots of space enviornment , low activity and high cal high fat fattening phase diet. No scalding, dry plucking, air chilled. Proper rest period. Not frozen. Then tons of marketing about how its French and the very best. IMO, the only group of people that "self market" better than the French are the Amish.

 

[CNJ]

You know I see that same opinion everywhere about the bresse but the only real reviews of the meat I have seen from true volaille de Bresse were cooked in a high end restaurant. Most people would likely not be overly wowed by fully dry aged Waygu beef either if they were not told ahead of time what they were getting. Raw I bet 90% would think they got spoiled meat.

Nothing about the chickens breed is going to make the meat that much more tender compared to others at those ages. The caponing I think is a big part as is the fatting phase in effecting the meat quality.

I think if you roasted a Bresse it would be a bit tough. My guess is if you took another breed known for fine meat texture and followed the same diet and raising you would end up with the same quality. What they have done IMO is just put all the small pieces together. Low stress lots of space enviornment , low activity and high cal high fat fattening phase diet. No scalding, dry plucking, air chilled. Proper rest period. Not frozen. Then tons of marketing about how its French and the very best. IMO, the only group of people that "self market" better than the French are the Amish.

They are different from any of the heritage breeds that I have grown. The chick is plump and filled in. It also seem to be feathering out faster. Just carrying one month old chicks in and out of their outside play pen make me salivate.

One of the reasons why I chose this breed was because they said the hens lay eggs one month before other heritage breeds, so it matures faster.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What age would you butcher cockrells and hens if you wanted nice tender meat for frying or roasting?

We all have our own tastes, tolerances, and preferences. Some people used to the chicken from the store or Popeye's might be offended by any differences. Some of us prefer those differences. I don't know what will work for you.

Some people don't want to fry or grill a cockerel that's more than 12 weeks old. One person on here loves his 14-week-olds grilled. I've seen some say they are OK with 16-week-olds fried or grilled. One difference is just personal preferences. How the meat is prepared can make a difference, marinating can tenderize meat. Some people might pre-cook it a slower and moist method and finish it on the grill or in the frying pan.

I don't have an answer for you, cockerels or pullets, frying or roasting. Part of that is your and your family's personal preferences and part of it is in the details of how you do it. To me trial and error is how you find your sweet spot.

 

[Morrigan]

As far as the best age to butcher roosters, another factor is how fast their testosterone is coming in -- i.e., how fast they are maturing. Some cockerels begin crowing and chasing hens at 11 weeks or so. Some don't exhibit this behaviors until the are 16, or even older.

In my experience, a 15 week old cockerel who has been crowing and attempting to mate for a couple of weeks, will have a firmer texture and a stronger taste that a 15 old who has not exhibited those traits yet. We have also observed that the testes of those more mature acting cockerels are also much larger then the those of the more mildly behaved, and more tender tasting, cockerels.

So, it's always a dance between size and tenderness. If you want a cockerel that is tender enough to grill, I would advise butchering either when they first start to show an interest in crowing and mounting hens, or by 14 weeks, whichever is earliest. Raising cockerel late in the season, so that they are coming into maturity during the late fall and winter when daylight hours are short, can also be helpful in delaying testosterone development until they are larger in size.

As far as the hens go. This year, I started butchering pullets for the first time, as part of plan to have a true dual purpose flock. Like @Ridgerunner I don't have the space to do that unless I'm willing to eat extra pullets. I am breeding for size, and intermingling some Red Ranger genetics, so my pullets are bigger than average. With that caveat, I've found that a 6 month old pullet is plenty big to be worth the effort and still quite tender -- much more so then a 6 month old cockerel would be. I thought that the flavor too, of the pullets was excellent.

Part of the process is experimenting to see what works for you. You might also need to relearn your expectations of what a chicken "should" look or taste like. No dual purpose bird is ever going to look or taste like a CX butchered at 6 weeks old. The further I've gotten into this, the more I've really come to enjoy and appreciate the extra texture and taste of the birds I'm raising.

 

[NatJ]

Some cockerels begin crowing and chasing hens at 11 weeks or so.

I've heard chicks crow before 8 weeks, with enough different cockerels that I don't even consider it unusual anymore. Certainly not all do, but if I raise a mixed-sex group to 8 weeks, I rather expect to hear someone start crowing.

 

[archeryrob]

Dual birds aren't what we are used too. They don't make great roasters and they are ok as fryers and breast meat is small.

We typically kill extra 18 - 20 week roosters and bone out and pressure can. They make fajitas, soup, pot pie and anything else by just opening jars when you need them.

Spent hens, IMO, are best through the grinder. This is an awesome recipe, just add pig fat.