Fast maturing barred rock

[InspectorLance]

I have this flock of barred rock, hens, and roosters. One of the roosters matured very fast, and started crowing at 13 weeks. I plan on keeping one of the roosters for breeding stock and butchering the rest. I was thinking that fast maturing could be a good thing, but started thinking it might be a negative, and he might end up being more aggressive. He also has some white hair next to his comb that I have never seen on a rooster before.
My Plan is to run the fertilized eggs through my incubator to raise more hens and butcher the roosters for meat. Just trying to decide what rooster to keep. Not sure if this fast featuring one is the right one to keep.
Also, the feathers on his side are a bit different. The white on the sides. Any thoughts?

 

[Party_Chicken]

I’m no breeder but if you are going to breed them I would go with a better barred roo.

 

[Folly's place]

Early maturation is a good thing, but far from the only consideration. For me, good temperament is first, then obvious conformation faults, size, and being a reasonable representative of his breed. If you are showing birds in conformation, it's necessary to be very picky about the breed standard. Otherwise, 'looks reasonable' might be good enough.
Eliminate and cockerels who are human aggressive, nasty generally, or have bad conformation. Then watch them grow, and take some time figuring out who your keepers are.
Mary

 

[InspectorLance]

I am just using barred rock as a dual purpose breed. Not breeding for a show, just for my own meat and eggs. Any excess chickens I end up with I can sell at my local auction to help cover a portion of my feed cost.

 

[Party_Chicken]

I am just using barred rock as a dual purpose breed. Not breeding for a show, just for my own meat and eggs. Any excess chickens I end up with I can sell at my local auction to help cover a portion of my feed cost.

Then he should be good.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have this flock of barred rock, hens, and roosters. One of the roosters matured very fast, and started crowing at 13 weeks. I plan on keeping one of the roosters for breeding stock and butchering the rest. I was thinking that fast maturing could be a good thing, but started thinking it might be a negative, and he might end up being more aggressive.

At what age do you plan to butcher the boys? What I would look for is the best size at butcher age if size is that important to you. The odds are that early maturing would be good for that.

This is about aggression toward the pullets and hens. I find that the early maturing boys have stronger personalities. They are more likely to win the girls over by force of personality as opposed to having to resort to violence. This is after they have matured some, any young cockerel can be a pain in the rear. I personally don't like the wimps that can't control their flocks by force or personality and have to rely on brute strength even when they are roosters.

If you are talking about human aggression, I'll still take my chances with an early maturing. They seem to have more self-confidence and are less likely to rely on force. But I keep a certain hands-off distance with them and don't try to compete with them or cuddle them. At the end of the day I do not know what makes a rooster human aggressive.

My Plan is to run the fertilized eggs through my incubator to raise more hens and butcher the roosters for meat.

How many hens do you plan to keep? If you hatch enough for averages to mean anything about half will be girls. You will soon be overrun with girls or will eat very few boys. You may consider selling girls to help pay for feed or eating some of the girls.

He also has some white hair next to his comb that I have never seen on a rooster before.

As far as I'm concerned that white will not change anything about the egg laying or the meat. I don't raise breeds, I raise chickens for meat, eggs, and other fun things so an SOP means nothing to me. Since you are not raising them for show, even if you sell pullets you should not be trying to get show quality prices anyway. There is so much that goes into raising show chickens trying to sell them for those prices would be fraudulent in my opinion.