Before we started raising and processing our own chickens, I couldn't find very much information about raising non-meat breed cockerels for processing. So, here is a little about my experience. I decided I wanted to breed and raise my own chickens for egg laying, but what can you responsibly do with the 50% that hatch boys? Everyone has too many cockerels, the options are to try and give them away locally, take them to a poultry sale, or a poultry auction. Since my chickens are more in the eggs and pets category, I also wanted to be sure the boys have good lives and are treated the best possible. This meant the best option for me was to keep the extra cockerels and process them so I know they were well taken care of, not allowed to be picked off by predators, or left in a situation that meant they were bullied or killed by other chickens, or any of those other bad scenarios I could think of.
Is it worth feeding them for 5 to 6 months? What do you feed them? Does free ranging vs keeping them in a coop matter? Is it even possible to put up with all those boys for long enough to get a decent sized chicken to process?
If you want to raise cockerels as a cheap source of meat, or to sell to "make money", don't bother. Go buy it at the store. But if you are doing it as a means to provide meat for your family, know how they were treated, what they were fed, and how they were processed, plus end up with much more flavorful chickens? 100% do it!
Commercial poultry farms are predominantly Cornish Cross, they are 6 to 10, maybe 12 weeks old when they are processed, typically they are housed in barns and never get to eat grass or a bug or feel the sun shining on their feathers. For better or for worse, they are not allowed to be given antibiotics, even if they desperately need them. Typically the chicks and the feed are provided to the farmer with strict guidelines on what they can and can't have. I have heard stories of thousands of chicks dying per day, that could be saved with a round of antibiotics, but the farmer can't give it to them, they just have to watch them suffer and die, with the ones who live ending up under weight and being an overall financial loss to the farmer. Raising your own, you get to decide the best course of action start to finish, and I like that! Plus, when they are commercially processed, there are several chemicals the birds go through or are sprayed down with throughout the butchering and packaging process, and I'd much rather not consume those residues.
In contrast, the cockerels I raise have lived a pretty posh 5 to 6 month life, running around eating whatever they want in the sun, dust bathing, dancing for the girls through the run fences, and getting to do whatever their little chicken brains want to do. To me, this makes it worth feeding them for the time it takes to get a reasonable sized table bird.
I haven't experimented a ton with feed and how they finish or taste, but I have been doing a non-gmo all flock, and this time I added some organic scratch mixed in the feed the last 2 to 4 weeks. They definitely had a good amount of yellow fat even though they had very active lifestyles. Most of the boys got to free range every day, all day. Another group free ranged about 2 to 4 times a week for several hours each. I couldn't really tell a difference between these two groups. Any overly aggressive boys were penned alone, these ones finished with more fat, and less color to the fat. The boys who got to free range really seem to have healthy organs, the livers are dark and evenly colored, the ones that are caged for the last several weeks don't have that same color, not awful or sickly looking, but not the same deep color as the free ranging cockerels.
Can I put up with all those extra boys until they are processing size? It depends on the day, and the breed. I've found some of the breeds and mixes stay pretty mellow while others have insane hormone rages starting about 12 to 15 weeks old. There are a few mixes we won't hatch going forward due to the consistently aggravating boys they create. Some breeds develop quicker or are just larger than others making one processing date for one hatch a little challenging. Or, you just pick a date and everyone goes even if they are a little smaller than you want.
Most of ours dress out between 2.5 to 3.5 pounds in the 22 to 26 week old range. They are great for low and slow cooking methods.
If you have stuck with me through this ramble so far and have never processed chickens before and are wondering if you should, yes, you should! The first time will be the most challenging, it gets easier after that. The non-meat breeds are slower growing, not your money makers, but they are still a good meat source for you and let's you hatch more chicks each year since you aren't worrying over what to do with all the boys.
to keep the genetics in the flock) it was due to the human aggressive nature of the rooster, now a few generations back but all his sons, grand sons, great grandsons, are always the more aggressive and aggravating boys in the flock. Trying to raise a group of all boys for 5 or 6 months has enough drama and spats without adding in a handful of aggressive boys in the mix.
