Excess Polish roosters

[NatJ]

Some people eat quail. A large fowl cockerel will be bigger than that.

I was just going to point that out too

By the time someone is sure of gender, a Polish cockerel certainly should be bigger than a quail. When I look up Coturnix quail, I find a lot of sites that say the mature live weight is around 5 ounces. Of course some are bigger or smaller, but that's still awfully small compared to chickens.

 

[Mburrows6653]

I was just going to point that out too

By the time someone is sure of gender, a Polish cockerel certainly should be bigger than a quail. When I look up Coturnix quail, I find a lot of sites that say the mature live weight is around 5 ounces. Of course some are bigger or smaller, but that's still awfully small compared to chickens.

Very true! I guess I just saw and heard ppl complain about the work/time processing a small chicken. But everyone is making very valid points! So, now I know what to do with my excess cockerels! Lol thanks!

 

[Geena]

Very true! I guess I just saw and heard ppl complain about the work/time processing a small chicken. But everyone is making very valid points! So, now I know what to do with my excess cockerels! Lol thanks!

It IS a lot of work/time for only a couple lbs of meat and I can understand some people not wanting to bother. I just hate being wasteful, and especially so these days when everything cost so much more.
Quail, although very small, are extremely simple to process with nothing but your hands and a pair of scissors in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately it usually takes a good bit longer to process a chicken.
One thing you might want to think about too is removing extra cockerels very early on so that you don't have to spend the time, effort and money growing them out. I know nothing about Polish, but with many breeds there are some things you can cull for when they are still quite young, such as size, conformation and color/pattern.
Just another option to consider.

 

[NatJ]

Quail, although very small, are extremely simple to process with nothing but your hands and a pair of scissors in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately it usually takes a good bit longer to process a chicken.

It also depends on how you process a chicken.

There are quite a few shortcuts that you can use if you know how it's going to be cooked (like cutting it wide open for easy access to the guts, or pulling off the skin & feathers together instead of plucking it-- both are wrong if you want it to look pretty for stuffing & roasting, but fine for some other uses.)

 

[Geena]

It also depends on how you process a chicken.

There are quite a few shortcuts that you can use if you know how it's going to be cooked (like cutting it wide open for easy access to the guts, or pulling off the skin & feathers together instead of plucking it-- both are wrong if you want it to look pretty for stuffing & roasting, but fine for some other uses.)

Yep, for sure, but if we start discussing the various ways of processing we're going to add another 10 pages to this thread
This is one of those very simple questions that has a whole lot of different answers, and they're all right, depending on how you look at it.

 

[Mburrows6653]

It IS a lot of work/time for only a couple lbs of meat and I can understand some people not wanting to bother. I just hate being wasteful, and especially so these days when everything cost so much more.
Quail, although very small, are extremely simple to process with nothing but your hands and a pair of scissors in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately it usually takes a good bit longer to process a chicken.
One thing you might want to think about too is removing extra cockerels very early on so that you don't have to spend the time, effort and money growing them out. I know nothing about Polish, but with many breeds there are some things you can cull for when they are still quite young, such as size, conformation and color/pattern.
Just another option to consider.

This is helpful thank you. Yes, the biggest issue with the Polish (tolbunt and splash/blue) I’m planning to breed is the color doesn’t show up right until 4-6 months and with the splash, even more after first molt! So I have that to deal with, plus, extremely hard to sex until 4-5 months as well. Lots of things to consider. Thanks for your reply!!!

 

[Vickischics]

This is helpful thank you. Yes, the biggest issue with the Polish (tolbunt and splash/blue) I’m planning to breed is the color doesn’t show up right until 4-6 months and with the splash, even more after first molt! So I have that to deal with, plus, extremely hard to sex until 4-5 months as well. Lots of things to consider. Thanks for your reply!!!

We culled and I buried my excess polish roos. But, I had white crested blacks, golden lace, and buff lace. I ended up with 8 cockerels and two pullets out of ten. Once they crow, bye, bye. I found it's too much work to process when you don't do it on a regular basis to get efficient at it. Plus, they're not a large bird.
Good luck.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

It's always worth processing. Even at a young age they can still make amazing broth. Then pull off the meat for chicken pot pie or soup. These recipes really stretch out a small amount of meat.

Yes! Even a small bird would have giblets in addition to the meat, and the bones, skin, and feet (if desired) can be used to make amazing, nourishing bone broth. I only use an electric pressure cooker now to make bone broth (2 hour cook time) and store-bought doesn't even come close.