[sausagesandcash]

My son has taken to keeping hens and has had three successful hatches in the few months he has had the hens (he now has a hen on Guinea Fowl eggs!). I am just wondering what most people do with the cockerels. Hens are of great benefit to us, but I assume one cockerel will suffice for servicing. What the hell am I going to do with the rest. Thus far I can only think of Cock-au-vin.

[Womble]

 
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but apart from tying dry flies and coq au vin, that's about it. Maybe one of the feet could be turned into a handy backscratcher of course.......
 
Coq in cider also works very well, but be careful how you say it in front of dinner guests  .

[benkt]

Coq au vin, cockerel casserole, cockerel curry the list goes on, but basically if you're going to hatch chicks I think you've got to be happy to eat a lot of cockerels!

[goosepimple]

We stopped hatching chicks because we felt we were breeding about 3 cockerels to 1 hen and we are too soppy to kill them ourselves - got a distant neighbour to do it for a bottle of wine.  Cockerels can take some  killing the older they get - you should do it as soon as you know for sure they are cockerels - some are easier to tell than others but they are more difficult to kill quickly when they are big.
If you don't like it, just buy hens, it makes things simpler and more enjoyable.

[Beewyched]

Or ...
If the cockerals are pure-breed, you could advertise them for sale/take them to a mart. 
As said previously, it does have to be a cold fact of raising any livestock - there is a 50/50 chance of anything born/hatched that it will be male.
We kill & either eat them ourselves or  feed our dogs with them - a short, but happy life & you know where your food's coming from 

[sabrina]

We, or should I say my OH kills them and the meat goes to the dogs. the job is done before they get too big.

[Womble]

 
In contrast, we let ours go until they start to crow before we do them in. The 'broomstick method' is easy enough once you've got round the thought of it.
 
I hate the idea of an animal going to waste, and the meat is far too nice for dogs IMHO. With practice you can take the breasts and legs off the carcass in about 15 minutes - way easier than plucking. Just make the meat is casseroled nice and slowly and it'll be lovely. (We did try roasting one once, but needless to say, we won't be trying it again!).
 
As for a 50:50 ratio, yeah right!  We had eight boys and two girls last year, and this year is looking similar!  This was of course balanced out by the turkeys, all eight of which turned out to be girls  .

[the great composto]

(We did try roasting one once, but needless to say, we won't be trying it again!).
 

Why was that?

I thought the first one I did was a little tough until I was told I didnt hang it for long enough. I do the same as you for cutting the breast and legs but found frying the breast was beautiful and tender.

[Rosie posie]

oooh noo noo! Don't waste them..
I cook mine in the oven, with an inch or so of water in the bottom of the tin,
you can cover with a bit of butter, lemon, garlic if you wish,
cover with a tent of foil, making sure you seal all around so no dry heat gets in, then roast/steam in a medium oven for a couple of hours.
Take the foil off for the last 20 mins or so to crisp the skin.
Succulent and delicious, even the older ones come out moist and tasty 

[Roxy]

The ratio of cockerels is definitely a lot higher ....from someone who has hatched many chicks under her broody hens.  I have also noticed that should any die/get eaten by cats or stuck in the corner of the pen, its always the diddy ones, who I assume are the hens, never the boys

[sausagesandcash]

Thanks for all the advice. Think we'll take the breasts and give the carcass to the dogs. Might try the plucking and see just how hard it is.

[hughesy]

I'm too lazy most of the time to do a full plucking job. These days I open the skin along the breast bone, fillet out the breasts, then skin and remove the legs also. I've found there's a marked difference in taste and tenderness from different breeds. For that reason I'm only going to grow on our Ixworth males from now on and cull the other breeds as soon as they can be sexed, having found that the Ixworth meat is tender enough for shorter cooking times and proper tasty too. I should add that we only keep traditional breeds and have never tried any of the modern hybrids.

[chrismahon]

Average is 55% cockerels but you can be unlucky. Our first hatch was 5 cockerels and one hen. Second hatch was 8 hens and two cockerels. After 7 hatches the average figure was about right with 24 cockerels and 22 hens.


If you want to breed you need a reserve cock as they have a habit of dying suddenly. You can get round this by storing eggs and not using them until they are over 7 days old. If the cockerel dies all the saved eggs go into the incubator. We used to breed Blue laced Wyandotte large fowl. We had 4 cockerels and sold one. Then we had a fox strike and two heart attacks. Result no cock to take to France and had to rush out to find one. We were lucky as one of the other 5 breeders in the country had a spare she was willing to sell. So worth thinking about that S&C. Get Gale Dumelows book called 'raising chickens'. Very comprehensive section on preparing cocks for the table. You do not hang them as they start to decompose and there is a health risk. They are gutted immediately then the meat rested to relax the muscles in the fridge for two days.

[Marches Farmer]

I read somewhere that a young cockerel will tend to produce females and an older one males but I've never kept records so I've never been able to find out for myself.  On that basis the sire of the 7 out of 9 Copper Blue Maran hatching eggs I bought last year must have been ancient!

I wouldn't try to roast a cockerel over 14 weeks old - the slow cooker comes into its own on the older boys.

[hughesy]

Over the last couple of years hatching we've averaged exactly 50% cockerels. I now cull all the unwanted ones as soon as they can be sexed but keep one of each breed with the growing pullets as an emergency spare just in case.