They are pretty good eating, very dark meat similar to a dove. They only eat spruce needles in the winter and can get pretty gamey, most folks don't shoot them after the snow flies. They are dumb as tackhammers and no sport at all with a shotgun. The little 32 does good as it is scary accurate and doesn't ruin much if any meat even when you shoot them through the wing butts like I normally do. I'm not good enough to consistently hit that little bobbing head.