Small non-meat breeds - getting what I can, efficiently

[MROO]

Do you know why they say this? Is it noise, behaviors, or the meat starts changing texture and flavor?

Where I live the noise is not an issue as far as neighbors go. My next-door neighbor, about a 1/4 mile away, says he likes to hear them crow. The sound does carry that far in the country.

I generally have around 10 cockerels (depending in what hatches) growing up with the flock in my first hatch of the year. What I usually see is that two or three determine which one is boss and the others are intimidated into behaving themselves. A few try to mate with the pullets so it can get active. No one gets hurt, which is my ultimate goal. But maybe every three or four years they get so rowdy with the pullets, going after the mature hens, and on a rare occasion challenging my mature rooster that it gets too wild for me so I isolate the cockerels in my grow-out area. That's a separate coop/run where they can see each other but not get to each other. It is used to integrate normally but in this case a bachelor pad.

As the cockerels go through puberty the hormones affect the meat. It gains more texture, that's why you need to change your cooking methods. The hormones also add flavor. Some people call that a gamey taste. Some of us like that flavor, some do not.

Some people on this forum say they have seen a cockerel try to crow at two weeks of age. I never have that young. Usually two or three of mine will start crowing at some point but the rest never do. The more dominant cockerels intimidate the less dominant so they are not going to be challenged. Chicken society can be complex.

I would treat the "process them when they start to crow" as a general rule of thumb but take a few other things into consideration.

Crowing is not so much a noise factor as it is a growth milestone. Cockerels start crowing when the hormones take over and the rapid growing spurt slows way down.