Rooster crowing

[tallgrass]

Hello, I used to have chickens as a kid in 4h and my mom raised a few meat birds. This was back in the 60's and i think they were White leghorns. I raised Indian Rivers.
My question is: I read that on straight run chickens you get about a 50/50 mix. Will the roosters start crowing before they are ready to process?
Thanks for looking.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

If you are talking about Cornish X, a few of ours might start to crow right at butcher time, but it was nothing like a barnyard rooster. When it comes to meat birds, the roo is the more disirable one, so straight runs usually get more hens. I order all roos.

 

[triplepurpose]

Kinda depends when you decide to slaughter them.... When "they're ready" is a highly variable decision...

 

[SIMZ]

Every "dual-purpose" chicken I've used for meat has been crowing before processing time. My last hatch had roosters crowing at 5 weeks and they were getting pretty good and loud by 10-12 weeks. We usually process extra roos around 15-20 weeks and some are definitely crowing by then.

 

[donrae]

If they're dual purpose, the answer is yes.

 

[Jubilee1111]

Every "dual-purpose" chicken I've used for meat has been crowing before processing time. My last hatch had roosters crowing at 5 weeks and they were getting pretty good and loud by 10-12 weeks. We usually process extra roos around 15-20 weeks and some are definitely crowing by then.

Do you feed them broiler feed? If not, what diet do you grow them on?

Sorry for the hijack!

 

[SIMZ]

Jubilee, We've always just fed them general starter (like Flockraiser) with the rest of the chicks. They were usually culled as an afterthought because they were "oops" roosters or mean. This year we will be purposely raising roosters for meat and we're still deciding how to feed them. Due to space constraints they'll probably be raised on a general starter with the pullets until close to butchering time.