Crowing...

We have three cockerels:  one Australorp/Orpington, about six months old;  and two Leghorns about 12 weeks old.  The A/O isn't crowing yet, but the Leghorns are:  it's time to eat them.

Pushmi-pullyu in the hen house, Oct 2018

Unlike our big black A/O cockerel, we have no intention of breeding from these little guys; I should be able to get another batch of eggs from the same source next spring if I so wish.

These little guys really are little:  they won't be much of a meal, unfortunately.  Even fully grown they won't have much meat on them, and once they start crowing they also start getting tougher and stringier--not meatier.  The A/Os were great in this respect:  fast growers and really big--but slow to sexually mature so even at 18 weeks they were still tender.  We'll cook and eat both Leghorns for the same meal;  I anticipate we'll get one meal of meat plus one of soup/stock altogether.

The husband has promised to kill these two, as I killed all three of the A/Os this summer:  it's his turn.  We're waiting till the weekend so we can devote time to it;  it took me and the son more than an hour to kill, pluck, and clean one of those big A/Os (the kill part was the quickest, and the pluck part the longest).  All three of us can pluck, hopefully making it go faster this time.

(Edited to add photo)