Compared with a duck of the same weight, a roasting chicken yields about twice as much edible product.

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Edible yield depends on how much of the bird’s weight is actual usable meat after removing bones, giblets, and trimming fat. A roasting chicken has a higher meat-to-bone ratio and more consistent, larger portions of edible meat per pound than a duck of the same weight. Ducks carry more fat and bone relative to meat, plus their muscle distribution doesn’t contribute as much edible meat per unit weight as chickens do. Because of these anatomical differences, a chicken typically provides significantly more edible product from the same weight of live bird—roughly around twice as much in common culinary yield estimates. In practice, this makes chicken a better choice when you’re aiming to maximize edible yield per pound.