Eating Young Maran Roos / What age?

[hmlongino]

Hi!

We have a bunch of young maran roos, and are wanting to process them. What is the right age for eating marans?

Thanks!
Holly

 

[gamebirdsonly]

Depends on how big you want them to get? I would butcher them when full size so between 6 to 10 months old.

 

[hmlongino]

I want to make it worth my while (so, not small!), but be tender. And, cost effective (months on feed) would always be nice!

 

[kizanne]

I processed a marans at 24 weeks maybe a little earlier. He dressed out to 3.6 pounds, was tender enough for me and had very little fat on him. I was very pleased. This was also about 4 weeks after he started crowing.

 

[SIMZ]

We've only butchered two of our black coppers. One at 15 weeks - small but more meat than other DP breeds at that age. The other was 17-18 weeks and dressed over 5 pounds with lots of meat! YUM. We're raising several now and I'd like to wait until 17-18 weeks again.....depending on how noisy and rambunctious it gets in the rooster pen.

Crowing at 20 weeks?! I want some of those! lol It seems my BCM boys start crowing around 5 weeks. Just this morning there was a crowing contest between my 11-week-old boys and my 8 week old boys. They're all getting very loud and good at crowing. Ugh!

 

[Jitamon]

What about a maran cross?

 

[mstricer]

I've crossed them with freedom rangers, and processed at 17 weeks and were tender and good. As with the Marans mine don't start filling out until about 9 months, they are more bones at first.