My heavy breed roosters are three monthes old and starting to crow some. I can't have them being all loud here in town, so I'm thinking about dressing them early. Anyone ever dressed their out smallish roosters? Did they taste and cook o.k., aside from being just somewhat larger than rock cornish game hens?

-- Marty (Mrs.Puck@Excite.com), May 31, 2001

Answers

When dressing young roosters, I find they look very cute in little tuxedos. Of course you have to dress the pullets in little white dresses.

After the weddings and you get them all plucked and naked, then paper bikinis and sunglasses are very appropriate for wearing in the rotissarie whee they will get very tanned indeed.

I am sorry. 16 years of pre-school activities on the farm have finally taken their toll.

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@hotmail.com), May 31, 2001.

Marty, chickens is chickens is chickens, game cocks are just small, young chickens. Next time you order chickens you can pay more and get hens only; preventing a problem is allways easier than curing a problem.

Laura, did you, by chance, maybe pull some weeds, that kinda looked like okra, and maybe piled these weeds, say in a burn pile? Were you downwind of these weeds? Did the smoke have a sweet sticky smell???

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 01, 2001.

hi Marty, the young roosters will have a disappointing amount of meat on them, but will dress out quite easily, and as noted above, chicken is chicken;)

-- mary, in colorado (marylgarcia@aol.com), June 01, 2001.

They may be small, but you will find them quite tender and tasty at that age. GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), June 01, 2001.

Brad, agreed; and they'll be a LOT easier to pluck.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), June 02, 2001.

Well, I guess I'll provide a full report here on how the identified early crower turnes out once grilled!

Thanks for your answers! (If they taste horrible before maturity I'd want to know...)

-- Marty in KS (Mrs.Puck@Excite.com), June 02, 2001.

My neighbor is going to dress my roosters out at about 10 weeks.....they are 3-4 pounds and tender then.

-- Storybook Farm (mumaw@socket.net), June 05, 2001.