Eating "Heavy Breed" / Dual Purpose roosters

[pamarino17]

So I bought a straight run of the following breeds: White Rock, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Buff Orps, Black Australorps. I got them all as dual purpose birds realizing that they would take more time to grow than the Cornish X. A couple of questions:

1) At what age should they be big enough to start eating? I read somewhere that they would be good at approx. 16 weeks, but they are nine weeks and awfully scrawny when I feel for the breast and leg. I feel like at 16 weeks, they will still be scrawny. I realize that they will never be as plump as the roasters you get at the store, but was hoping for something full.

2) How heavy will they be at 16 weeks (or whenever they are ready to eat)? Cackle Hatchery says that of these breeds, the roosters will be anywhere from 8-10 lbs before butchering. That sounds like a good size to me, but maybe I should not consider them roosters but cockerels? Even the cockerels are listed as being decent size too.

I have 43 birds in total, and I'll find out later how many will be laying hens and how many will be eating birds. I'm hoping that I can take care of the roosters before they start annoying my neighbors (who so far seem to like them). Will I be able to, or am I going to have to wait a couple more months?

 

[Mom2Cool]

well last year I hatched 18 out of 20 Speckled Sussex eggs & 12 of them were roosters

I think I let them go to 18 wks because they seemed small at first, though I think I might have processed 2 at 16 wks because we were new to it & wanted to start out with just a couple to process. I think I made both on the grill because they seemed small but they were around 3 to 4 lbs after processing.... We do them in smaller numbers & so at 18 wks we processed a 3 then at 21 wks we did 4 etc. etc. and weight wise they'd maxed out at about 5 to 6 lbs after processing & they were certainly all gone by 30 wks. Hubby just processed a Buff Orpington Roo at almost a year old & he's 4.5 to 5 lbs after processing. he's sitting in a brine now & I'm thinking of bbq tonight.

 

[Acre of Blessings]

I would say that somewhere between the window of 18 to 24 weeks.....beings the longer you wait the tougher they get. I am happy to process a rooster and get about 4 lbs. of meat rather than having to buy form the store. We have 18 chicken eggs in the bator that will soon be hatching....at 18+ weeks they will be in the freezer.

 

[Red&Yellow]

I am planning on processing at 20 weeks...I've read someplace sometime that that was a good time...

 

[dancingbear]

Hatchery stock DP's tend to be scrawnier than really good quality birds. So how big yours will get depends a lot on how much production-layer they have been diluted with. Mine seem to mostly max out around 20-25 weeks. They will slowly get bigger if you let them stick around longer than that, but the fastest growth is pretty much over by that point. Mine are several large breeds, some from breeder stock, cross bred, so they get bigger than single breed hatchery birds, but any chicken will make a good meal. Even if you only get 2-3 lbs of meat per bird, that's 2-3 lbs of meat you didn't have before.

Be sure you look up lots of info on cooking older birds, so you'll get tender, delicious meat instead of shoe leather. It's not hard, but please do read up.

 

[chickencrazymamahen]

When we process our young roos, we start processing at about 12-13 weeks, small I know, but tender and tasty..usually they weigh out at 2-2 1/2 lbs., they will never be as plump as cornish, but the flavor it unbeatable. I have never let one go on to 20 weeks or so..I would have called them broilers by then, not fryers.....find this interesting...may have to try it this year...most of our butchering is done by 16 weeks and thats pushing the limit for us. The barred rocks seemed to get tougher before the white rocks, RIR, NH and others, don't know why. I prefer a white rock carcass for meat...just looks really good...but the others are great too.

Good luck!!