[digga666]

Tom are your birds sold for meat and why not feed then the nice mix all their lives or will this lead to too much slow growth for you?

[darkbrowneggs]

Any breed can be killed at any age (I think there is a recipe of chicken pudding with a suet crust in the old 1870 version of Wrights Poultry which uses 2-3 week old cockerel culls (In those days they were prepared to work for less reward than we expect these days - plus food was more highly valued).  Its just that you won't get much meat,  and personally I don't begrudge my birds a few extra weeks of running around in the fresh air doing what birds are meant to do. 

What you gain from a more mature traditional bird is better flavour and less "gummy" texture

Out of interest you mention Poulet de Bresse and this link includes the following paragraphs

The Poulet de Bresse is a' commercial product'. It is a continuous improvement of an ancient breed, the selection of breeding stock is taken very seriously.   Curiously, both sexes are grown for meat production, alongside the premium capon product. The capons are produced these days with physical castration of young roosters, without anaesthetic.

 The Gauloise is a very fast maturing bird. It can come into lay at 16 weeks or so, if given optimum growing conditions, and a spring hatch. The breed is capable of laying 180-220 eggs per year.  To me this breed is all about meat production. At 12 weeks, it is possible for a 1500g table bird, at 16 weeks a 2.5Kg bird.   If left to mature for typical pure breed ages, it is capable of 3.5Kg. This is not it's forte though, the young birds are both very tender and delicate in flavour.

Care has to be taken in choice of bloodlines if considering this breed, if a utility bird is what you wanting to grow. There appears to have been two or three imports from the Continent of this breed to Ireland in the last couple of years, and it is from Ireland that this breed is filtering into the United Kingdom.
 
One line, certainly appears to be possibly not a recent Bresse Selection Centre line. From a Utility point of view, this line is slower growing with the roosters not filling out at the expected age in comparison to birds of a known lineage to the Selection Centre, and the egg production is slightly lowers with slightly smaller eggs.

Caponisation was carried out in this country for many years, and it results in a much faster growing and more tender bird, so apart from the growth rates not being a fair comparison, I would assume, or at least hope that caponisation of male birds is now illegal in this country -either physically without anesthetic or chemically with hormone implants.   

[digga666]

Are you saying that castration allows these birds to kill out at earlier ages with good weights?

What would happen if they werent castrated? Would the meat be tainted or would they just take too long to grow?

[Casey76]

Chemical and surgical castration (caponization) of cockerels is illegal in the UK.

Digga, it doesn't taint the meat  but capons tend to be much fatter, i.e. contain more fat, than cockerels.

[digga666]

I wouldn't get involved with castration anyway and as regards fat that is a definete  no-no that's why i want them outside running around a field.

Thanks Casey

[ANHBUC]

My daughters boyfriend who is a chef recently cooked chicken for us.  He put an opened can of McEwans Export in the cavity and butter under the skin.  It was lovely and moist and very tasty.  Think I would only use half of the can though as it is quite strong tasting.

Going to try it with ginger beer next time, think it should taste nice.  Fingers crossed.   

[Sassy]

Absolutely not an expert on meat birds. I raised some Light Sussex chicks and killed out the cockerels at about 24 weeks and they were great to eat. I would do it again