We ate ours. I know some people have a hard time eating their "pets" but for us it was a practicality thing. I.e., we have to eat and the chickens in the store were once living animals too. In the case of our own chickens, we knew the kind of life they had had (free-ranged, fed treats every day, HAPPY!) and we researched for a long time before doing it to find the most humane way to process them. I don't believe they suffered much if at all, and they were treated with respect and dignity right up to the last moment, which is more than can be said for commercial meat chickens. So for me it wasn't an issue but I do recognize that not everyone would want to do this. I also wanted my kids to know "where their food comes from". We used every last part of them that we could (made stock from feet etc) so that their lives weren't wasted at all. The way we look at it - the girls provide food in the form of eggs and the boys in the form of meat. As for age, we did the first three when they were 16-18 weeks of age and the last one when he was about 23 weeks. They didn't crow until about 16 weeks so I figured there was nothing for any of our city neighbors to object to until then. At 6-8 weeks, most dual purpose birds are still not going to be near the size to provide a decent meal, so if you decide to go this route, I really think you'll want to wait until they are older/bigger.
