New to forum dressing out chicken

[pwsties]

At what age do you dress out a Barred Rock chicken. I purchased a few extra chicks to have a few for the freezer. Now I need to know at what age to dress them out at. I usually purchase just ones for laying hens.

 

[snow5164]

I hope you aren’t disappointed with the weight of those birds,

I only raise broilers for meat so I’m no help , I wait til they hit 9 pounds

 

[aart]

At what age do you dress out a Barred Rock chicken. I purchased a few extra chicks to have a few for the freezer. Now I need to know at what age to dress them out at. I usually purchase just ones for laying hens.

Depends on how you want to cook them, and what your expectations are.
They will not be like a grocery bird, or even a homegrown Cornish Cross.

I slaughter cockerels at 13-16 weeks, before they start causing chaos and while still tender enough to grill for that crispy skinned deliciousness. Not much meat but the grilled bones make for some excellent stock. Anything older than that I pressure cook until meat is done and is saved aside then a couple more hours to get that bone broth.

Resting the cleaned carcass in fridge for 48-72 hours for rigor to pass is essential for chewable meat from any bird(except maybe CX?). Tho no homegrown bird I've eaten, layer or meat breed, is as soft as a grocery bird, they are more 'toothsome'.

Browse the Meat Birds forum for more info:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/meat-birds-etc.21/

 

[Ridgerunner]

We do it at all different ages. As Aart said a big part of that is how you want to cook them. The older they get the more flavor and texture the meat has so you need to cook then according to their age. There are all kinds of different ways to cook them at any age but (other than pressure cooking) the older the chicken the less heat and more moisture your method needs to use. You did not say cockerels, you said chickens, so you could be talking about pullets too. As far as cooking methods, cockerels and pullets age differently. If you have a certain cooking method in mind we may be able to offer some suggestions.

Some people butcher cockerels as young as 12 weeks. There is very little meat on them but they don't want the cockerels to hit puberty and start to crow or start chasing the females. Those can be fried or grilled. I like to wait until about 23 weeks for cockerels and probably close to 8 months for pullets so I can see what kind of eggs they are laying to decide keepers and those for meat. I bake those cut into pieces and coated with herbs for about 3 or 4 hours at 250 degrees F.

Another issue is that we all have our own tastes and expectations. Our chickens. cockerels and pullets, are going to be older than he Cornish X you are probably used to from the store so they will have more texture and flavor. Some people find that grilling chicken (especially cockerels) after 12 weeks leaves the meat too tough to enjoy. Aart's age is 16 weeks. Another member has a cut-off of 14 weeks for grilling cockerels. We all have our favorite method of cooking and ages, sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to find what suits you best.

Good luck!