Using layers as meat birds

[HHandbasket]

I'll jump on the bandwagon here. We started processing our extra roosters a couple of months ago, just a few here and there. Everything we've processed has been between 8 and 18 months of age. We had one particularly mean rooster that was hard to kill, hard to eviscerate, had ZERO subcutaneous fat or visceral fat, and was stringy and yucky. He was 16 months old when we finally had had enough of his shenanigans and processed him. It was worth it, though. The flock is quieter, and I don't have to carry a stick with me now for protection everytime I go into the chicken yard.

But we have gotten pretty good at this processing thing now that we have done it a few times, and we actually kinda have a little "assembly line" between the two of us (though it's really more like a chicken DIS-assembly line). Now that we know what we're doing, we won't let the roosters get so old in the future before we process them. Right now, the only roosters we kept are those we are intending to breed and a silkie roo that is just a family pet (spoiled rotten LOL). Everybody else got to take a little carnival ride in our handy dandy EZ Plucker. In fact, we are intending to pick up a few heavier dual purpose breed cockerel chicks (some delawares, maybe a couple of barred rocks, and I'd like to get some dark cornishes--no more Rhode Island reds, though) and will process them at about 16 to 18 weeks from now on. And we won't have them "come of age" in the middle of winter, because even the ones we did process kept having to be put off because the weather was nice on our workdays but rained ONLY on our days off every week for the whole month of January. Ain't that the way? LOL!

 

[ElioraImmanuel]

We ate our extra roos last year. Had them processed at 18 weeks for $1.50/bird. It would be cheaper to give them away, but I try to avoid store bought meat. I have a movable pen so they get fresh grass, daily and a full complement of bugs.

 

[the_great_snag]

The tastiest bird I ever processed myself was an old red sexlink rooster (he was beige) that I got for free from a friend. I could not catch him so I had to shoot him! lol
Anyway, I baked him with cream of chicken soup and rice and my family devoured him!

I am strongly considering running a flock of straight run leghorns this year and butchering the roos.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
You could do that, but Leghorns won't be the meatiest roosters you could raise. In the industry Leghorn hens are valued as great egg layers, but the rooster chicks are not considered worth the effort to raise for meat. There are other breeds that make better dual-purpose chickens, where the hens are good layers and the roos grow bigger.

 

[the_great_snag]

Oh I know, I keep hearing how good the leghorns are to eat and thought it would be a fun experiment to raise a few for fryers and see how they turned out.

 

[Erica]

Here's a pic of one I dispatched recently, aged 11 weeks. He was the largest of three white leghorn x ISA brown cockerels, though one was wider and had more breast flesh.

He weighed nearly 900g (sorry, I'm not sure what that is in ounces) and had a good balance of breast to leg meat. Fed 3 adults easily, wonderful flavour and texture.

900g isn't bad considering that's without skin, tail or wingtips.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

900 grams is just under 2 pounds, a fairly small bird. Still worth the effort to butcher & cook, still able to satisfy your family. I know there's someone on these forums who likes raising Leghorns for fryers, he doesn't take them all the way to 20 weeks but butchers them earlier, at a point when it's really not worth pouring much more feed into them because they won't develop much more meat no matter what.

You could experiment with your own Leghorn roos and see how you like them. You could also try McMurray's Heavy Assortments http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/heavy_assorted_straight_run.html or http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/all_heavies.html and see which of the breeds you were sent suit you best.

 

[the_great_snag]

Here's a pic of one I dispatched recently, aged 11 weeks. He was the largest of three white leghorn x ISA brown cockerels, though one was wider and had more breast flesh.

He weighed nearly 900g (sorry, I'm not sure what that is in ounces) and had a good balance of breast to leg meat. Fed 3 adults easily, wonderful flavour and texture.

900g isn't bad considering that's without skin, tail or wingtips.

That's a nice looking bird. Certainly nothing wrong with that.

 

[TriciaHowe]

I'll jump on the bandwagon here. We started processing our extra roosters a couple of months ago, just a few here and there. Everything we've processed has been between 8 and 18 months of age. We had one particularly mean rooster that was hard to kill, hard to eviscerate, had ZERO subcutaneous fat or visceral fat, and was stringy and yucky. He was 16 months old when we finally had had enough of his shenanigans and processed him. It was worth it, though. The flock is quieter, and I don't have to carry a stick with me now for protection everytime I go into the chicken yard.

But we have gotten pretty good at this processing thing now that we have done it a few times, and we actually kinda have a little "assembly line" between the two of us (though it's really more like a chicken DIS-assembly line). Now that we know what we're doing, we won't let the roosters get so old in the future before we process them. Right now, the only roosters we kept are those we are intending to breed and a silkie roo that is just a family pet (spoiled rotten LOL). Everybody else got to take a little carnival ride in our handy dandy EZ Plucker. In fact, we are intending to pick up a few heavier dual purpose breed cockerel chicks (some delawares, maybe a couple of barred rocks, and I'd like to get some dark cornishes--no more Rhode Island reds, though) and will process them at about 16 to 18 weeks from now on. And we won't have them "come of age" in the middle of winter, because even the ones we did process kept having to be put off because the weather was nice on our workdays but rained ONLY on our days off every week for the whole month of January. Ain't that the way? LOL!

I think that was the funniest thing I have ever read..... LOL

 

[Oregon Blues]

Leghorn roosters have very nice flavor and if they are young enough, they are tender.

They just are small, is all. The feed conversion isn't great. but if you have a lot of forage, so that they aren't eating purchased food, it helps with the cost.

I once raised 20 leghorn roosters because they were a nickel each, so I paid $1 for all 20. 3 turned out to be nice hens and 17 went into the freezer and they were very well received at the dinner table.

I wouldn't do it now because feed has gotten so expensive. But I can say from experience that they are good eatin'. It would just be some expensive eatin' because they eat a lot of expensive food to gain not much weight.

It's possible that the hatcheries would sell them extremely cheap, since nobody wants them. People ordering leghorn chicks probably refuse to buy straight run, so the male Leghorns are going to be discarded.