Unless you have a perfectly controlled growroom and the experience to provide perfectly for you plants...chronological age should be more of a baseline figure, not as a hard-n-fast rule. If your plant isn't ready to have clones taken at 4 weeks, it isn't ready. Pushing it could ruin the mother plant AND the immature branches you're trying to clone. (have some patience) You can keep a plant in the growth phase for years, with proper handling.

A male plant can only offer you pollen. No buds, no seeds. Check the male leaves for trichomes. If there are any, dry some leaves and smoke it, then tell us if it was worth it. In desperate times I've smoked the male, but it's not at all like smoking the females. I really wouldn't bother making butter with males though. IMHO, not worth wasting the other ingredients.

The calyx's on a female will eventually push-out a couple of hairs from the pointy end. These pistils are tubes designed to catch and transport the pollen to the heart of the calyx. (to the embryo) One calyx plus one grain of pollen makes one seed.

Male pollen sacks and female calyx's can look alike, and sometimes the pistils take their time popping-out. Be damned sure you aren't killing a slow-developing female.