golden sexlinks and butcher time.

[spamanon]

We are raising golden sexlinks, our first attempt at this. They are three months old, so we decided to butcher one to see how it would go, and how much meat we were getting. Dressed out he weighed 2.5 lbs. This seems really light (I guess his feathers made him look bigger!) Does anyone here have a recommendation for how much longer to wait? What about weighing them BEFORE butchering? How much should they weigh "on the hoof?" We got a straight run and the hens aren't laying yet. Thanks for any advice!

 

[jjparke]

I just butchered my buff orp roo and he was about 4 months. His breast was pretty bare but his legs were about 2 pounds each. And they were absolutely delicious! I don't think I'll do another batch of cornish x because they are such an ugly, dumb chicken. Anyway, hope this helps. Also, rule of thumb of live weight vs. butcher weight is 2/3. So a 6 pound live chicken will yield about 4 pounds cleaned.

 

[spamanon]

2 pound legs! Wow, I am jealous. We are going to just butcher the rest today and cut our losses. I guess these guys just have a low conversion ratio.
I thought they would get bigger than 2.5 lbs in 3 months.

Live and learn. Next time we are going for a faster growing bird.