How old is too old?

[JacinLarkwell]

I see a lot of people butcher extra boys at 16-18 weeks. How old can you get away with boys before they're just not worth cooking?

 

[Molpet]

I pressure cooked a 2 1/2 yr old breeding rooster. He was great.
The older they are either pressure cook, crock pot or low and slow.
I have some bjg that fill out at 6 months. Great flavor and good roasters

 

[iwltfum]

I pressure cooked a 2 1/2 yr old breeding rooster. He was great.
The older they are either pressure cook, crock pot or low and slow.
I have some bjg that fill out at 6 months. Great flavor and good roasters

The age just determines how I will cook the chicken. A young broiler you can cook anyway you want, but the older they get, the more you will want to do tenderizing techniques like brining, marinating, slow cooking, stewing, pressure cooking ect. We butcher out our 4 year old laying hens every spring and they make delicious chicken and dumplings and of course bone broth.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Depends on your personal preferences. Coq au Vin is how the French create a gourmet meal out of a several-years-old rooster. Some people may not want to cook Coq au Vin or may just not like it. I suspect the original recipe was a traditional farmer's wife's way of cooking an old bird and fancy chef's started using it. It sure sounds like something traditional. I'd consider it as much soul food as chicken and dumplings, an American traditional way to cook an old bird.

If you insist one frying or grilling, 16 weeks could be too old for you, but you could probably pre-cook it some slow moist way and finish it in the frying pan or on the grill. Age determines how you cook it, not whether you can or not.

 

[Torinik]

They're always worth cooking, no matter how old.
I like brahma roosters for coq au vin, there's just something about them that my meat mutts miss in the coq au vin. The oldest rooster I ever used was 5 years old, this one looked old too and that's why I processed him before nature would. He made my best coq au vin ever. So, the older the better when it comes to that.
We always used to have layer-hybrids for eggs and those were turned into soup when they stopped laying. Some were part of the flock for 7 or 10 years before they became soup-chickens (that's actually what an old chicken is called around here). One walked around for 15+ years (i lost track how old she really was, but way over 15), that one died of a natural cause and got buried. Nowadays I would never let a chicken go to waste like that, which means they don't make it to 7 anymore (4 tops I would say, and only if there's a very good breeding reason to do so) and I would also turn a 15 year old into soup. Bon appétit.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Okay, thabks.

I guess more of what I meant in my origional question is what age is it when you can no longer fry them normally and have to pressure cook them to get them tender again

 

[Molpet]

Okay, thabks.

I guess more of what I meant in my origional question is what age is it when you can no longer fry them normally and have to pressure cook them to get them tender again

https://www.betterhensandgardens.com/how-to-cook-heritage-chickens/