How much meat am I losing if I cull a cockerel at 14 weeks?

[Chubbicthe2nd]

He is a regular Americana. Supposed to be female, though I suppose even the hatcheries only guarantee 90% accuracy on sexed chicks.

We have like seven of the roosters we have to butcher this week (long story). Anyway, I was wondering if it was worth just getting the meat on him now as opposed to having another bloody butchering session 10 weeks from now.

So I'm a newbie at this, but it seems like people tend to butcher roosters at 24 weeks? Is that the optimal balance between the amount of meat you get and the tenderness of the meat?

How much meat am I losing by butchering at 14 weeks? Is he 50% full size? 80%? How much bigger do roosters get between 14 weeks and 24 weeks?

I'm thinking about doing this because he's already pretty vicious to the smaller pullets and chicks. I've had good roosters and vicious roosters, and at this point I'm tired of giving vicious roosters the second chance.

One of these days I'll write up the lurid cautionary tale of naive compassion, chicken brutalities, and the rise and fall of our rooster pack, aka "How I Became Disillusioned and Redpilled About the Natural Social Order by my Chickens".

 

[iwltfum]

So I'm a newbie at this, but it seems like people tend to butcher roosters at 24 weeks? Is that the optimal balance between the amount of meat you get and the tenderness of the meat?

Totally depends on the breed of chicken. Amaericaunas are real mixed bag generally. Many cockerels can continue productively gaining weight into the 8 or 9 month mark, but people trying to raise meat will generally not let them go that long. All depends on temperate for me. I will not let a gang of young roosters become bullies and punks, but I will happily let some young roos continue eating past 6 months of they are agreeable. I'm in the camp of "if I'm culling young cockerels, it's all happening in the same morning". Same with meat bird batches. I'm trying to knock it all out at once. None of this butcher half this weekend, then the other half the next weekend stuff.

How much meat am I losing by butchering at 14 weeks? Is he 50% full size? 80%? How much bigger do roosters get between 14 weeks and 24 weeks?

It's hard to say. It would be interesting to weigh him. Have you ever done that? It's always a hoot. Then subtract 70% for a butchered weight. But I probably wouldn't wait too long with an aggressive cockerel

 

[Molpet]

Depends on how you want to cook them.
I usually start harvesting at 16 wks.

 

[Morrigan]

I personally butcher any heritage type cockerels between 13 and 16 weeks old. It depends a bit on how you plan on cooking them, but that to me is the sweet spot. They are not yet creating total havoc in the flock (fighting, chasing hens), yet they are big enough to be worth the butcher, plus tender enough not to need special cooking techniques.

At 14 weeks, I've have cockerels weigh anywhere 2 and 3.5 pounds. Not huge, but plenty tender and tasty. If you want to wait until they get bigger, you need to look into slower cooking techniques (see above post). I've done that too, and pressure cooked older cockerels and roosters are quite tasty. But, the real hassle for me is feeding and keeping them in my flock for longer than 16 weeks.