What is the youngest age to reasonably cull a cockerel or duckling for meat?

[danceswithronin]

I wanted to do a few batches of meat birds but I don't really want to bother with integrating meaties into my laying flock or creating another run for meat birds. Are there any other large fowl breeds that can be reasonably culled at six-eight weeks other than Cornish X? I don't mind if they are small carcasses, I just want to be able to process and put them away quickly without having to take care of a dozen meat birds for any extended amount of time.

And as for ducklings, I've heard of people eating roast duckling but I never hear about anybody processing them. What age do people typically process a duck for meat? What is the earliest age you can do so and have it be worth the trouble?

Would it be easier to just do squab or quail instead?

 

[Wezdin]

Check out freedom ranger chickens, they may be what you are looking for.

 

[Acre4Me]

We just gave them the end of the run last year - first batch of meat chx. For shade we added a secured umbrella. This pic they are 6 weeks old. We butchered at 7 weeks. These must be a cornish x type, but the hatchery we bought them from has their own 2 meat strains. Because we didn't have a secure house for them outside, we transported them into the barn each night and locked them in the large brooder with water and food. Every morning, we put them in the run. Since it was only a few weeks of this, it was manageable and we didn't have to construct anything.

Quail mature fast. But, less meat. Easy to butcher, and if you don't care about the skin, they just slip right out of their skin, making it pretty fast. We never plucked the quail. If you like quail, they are easy, but gotta raise more for the quantity of meat.

 

[Mosey2003]

6-8 weeks on a dual purpose or layer breed is gonna be VERY lean. If, say, you wanted to do them fast and throw a couple in a pot at a time just for soup, you could do that. But you're basically wasting feed, really. 12 weeks is the earliest I plan to do mine.

Ducks are a whole nother ball of wax, literally. There are certain ages you must butcher ducks (and geese) in order to get them plucked properly. I know 18 weeks is one. You have to time it with their molting, there are websites that list the proper ages. Also, if you really want that nice duck skin, you really need to wax them when you scald them. You buy a chunk of paraffin wax, melt it in hot water, and set up a tub of ice water. I don't recall if you plain water scald them first, but you dip them in the waxed water until their feathers are coated, then the ice water so the wax hardens, then you chunk it and peel the feathers off with the wax.

 

[ChickenLeg]

I usually dont cull my extra males til closer to 3-4 months, that way they have a little meat and arent too tough yet. I one time got a golden laced wyandotte male that I culled at about 3 months and he had a good amount of meat.

 

[LilyD]

Ducks I would say earliest I have processed my muscovies was 16 weeks with them you could go longer probably out to 6 months if need be or a year the meat still is great not tough at all. Turkeys tend to be 20 weeks to get to a thanksgiving turkey size but you could probably process closer to 10-12 weeks if you wanted. They would be smaller but if you did the Broad Breasted Whites then they would probably be plump even then. My turkey poults are already breasty at 1 week old so they have lots of meat coming in early rather than a dual purpose bird which tends to build up their frame first and meat secondarily.

 

[123RedBeard]

Pekin ducks at 7 weeks ...

https://www.metzerfarms.com/CommercialMeatDucklings.cfm?affiliate=undef&CustID=23943433

 

[CoturnixComplex]

I think you have gotten fantastic advice (and would also recommend cornish x or freedom rangers) but one of the quail fairies is popping in to say they're delightfully easy (I call them my tiny arctic guppy chickens), are perfect at 6-8 weeks, and mind-numbingly delicious fresh compared to those frozen store ones.

 

[Ra_]

Something was after my birds this morning.
It ran off before I got out to the paddock but one of the 12 week old boys was dead.
The Serama in the habitat next to him were going bananas.
Not a mark on him. Maybe it scared him to death?
This crossbreed develops slowly but I got a nice amount of meat from him because these are a large breed.
I just sliced him open and carved out the breasts and chopped off the legs and thighs.
Cutlets tonight.

 

[danceswithronin]

Thanks for all the advice guys! I may try raising and processing quail or something smaller to see how well I do with the actual killing and gutting aspect of the process before I graduate into full-size birds. Since I've euthanized animals for animal control though, I don't think I'll have much of a problem with it if it's for my own food supply.