I put "mistakes" in quotes because excess birds are not a bad thing if they are useful for something. If I were breeding championship gerbils or something, the extras would be of far less use. I like the idea of dual purpose birds because they are intended to be useful in more ways than one. For a dog breeder, for instance, extra dogs that are not show quality can be hard to place and many end up in bad situations. With a meat bird - the excess birds are welcomed to our table even if they are not what we are breeding for. I am a pragmatic person - I like useful animals as well as nice ones.I don't see this reasoning. Where is the mistake? They are not my mistakes but my accomplishment. Nature provides us with as many cockerels as pullets and one cannot keep all those cockerels. I had more cockerels than pullets this season by a wide margin. All the cockerels I grow out are better than the male I began my breeding with in 2005-2006. What is nice about Buckeyes is that once your flock is up and running (and you are selecting for type & weight), nearly all of the progeny make weight & they produce good meat birds for the table. Ideally, this should be your goal. If I want, I can now select for traits I used to ignore (color, black on breast; black on wing bar, bad comb) -- however, I will still keep the best type bird from a group even if it has a one of these traits (though it would not make the cut in another group).
From the same breeding pen, you will have variation.