Decrowing Roosters.

[Appylover]

If I was in an area that would only allow a decrowed roo then I would have a decrowed roo. My girls are happier with a roo in the flock. I say this because there are not as many fights, not as many squables over food, and just more harmony. He keeps the young guys in check and he woos his girls and he woos me lol. Today he showed me the yummy cricket nest he found. Then he was upset that I refused to eat the one he dropped at my feet,

 

[Time-Out]

I'm torn, so I haven't voted.

I have a little boy that I completely adore (and he adores me, else there'd be no issue), but the neighbours already complain about the noise of the wild pheasants, so no chance of keeping a crowing cockerel at home. The thing is, he 'talks' to me. He'll jump onto my lap, cock his head up at me, look me straight in the eye and make soft 'doodoodoo' noises. You should also hear him chatting to his girlfriend; it is the sweetest thing in the world. There was this one time, he was tanning himself on my lap outside, while she was in the stable/coop. She gave a funny sort of squawk and he leapt off my lap like he'd been shot, ran down to the stable door and was pacing up and down, quite stressed because it was shut. It reminded me of a husband in the pub "Whoops, the wife just called, I'd better get home!"
Sorry, I digress. It would be heartbreaking if he could no longer talk. For me to resort to decrowing, it would have to be as a very last resort, one where even finding him a good home (even if not with me) wasn't possible.

I try to put my animals' needs before mine. What would be most traumatic: being de-crowed or living without me?

 

[Sk8inChick(en)]

Translation: never underestimate the ridiculous amount of money people will spend on an animal.

I'm trying so hard to be respectful...I understand that everyone has to make a living and that you've put a lot of effort into satisfying what very well may be a niche market for rich idiots. But, oh my, no, just, NO! This is weird science and designer pets and...everything that makes me crazy.

I don't know if this is an accurate statistic at all, probably just an urban myth, but it sums up my response to your request for opinions relating to this designer pet surgery, "If we took the money Americans spend on their pets each year we could end childhood hunger."

So long as there are hungry children in our country, so long as there are parents who cannot feed their children, there are better uses for an extra $250 than de-crowing a rooster.

Hmm, this is an intersting quote.

It does make you think, I will admit that.

However, I also think it an appropriate statement (even if not proven accurate) to say that "if Americans took half of their money that they spend on unneccesary clothing, shoes, make-up, eating out, going on vacation, etc. that could also add up to a child-hunger-ending figure."

Now, I don't wish to offend anyone, and I'm not trying to say that you are wrong at all. I think you have a good point there. I just believe that there are many different unneccesary things, including pets, clothing, gourmet food, hobbies, etc. that Americans spend their money on.

I think in truth, people are just going to spend their money on what they want to spend it on.

Thanks for listening to my speech!

And as for the rooster de-crowing surgery debate, I think if there is a low level of risk involved, and it saves your rooster's life and allows you to keep your pet, than it sdoesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

If a person wants to spend that money on their beloved pet, and they think it's a good idea, then that is their decision.

 

[foreverhome]

The real problem is having to live near people who are uptight about animals. If only we could keep the roosters and rehome our neighbors....

 

[RachaelS]

it is a cruel, risky and unnecessary practice ... there are other humane options available. IF you live in town and are worried about your rooster crowing, then box him at night. If you can't be bothered with the little bit of extra effort, then just don't have a rooster!

Its on a par with de clawing cats, and de barking dogs

What about if someone wanted to de squawk a parrot?

Roosters crow, peacocks scream, babies cry and poop, and that is it.

Any vet encouraging people to have these things done to their animals is acting very unethically, and is only interested in making money.

I guess maybe you have different roosters over there, but here ours crow at ALL hours. At night is the only time mine did not crow. I guess vets that spay are only in it for the money also right?

 

[RachaelS]

Well, gather up some stones and get ready to throw them at me.

I have had two dogs "de-barked.". Prior to doing this, I thought it was cruel. How mean! Just so you don't have to hear a dog do what it does, which is bark? What meanies? Horrific!

I have dachshunds. I lived in a mobile home community. Dacschunds tend to bark, a very shrill and obnoxious bark to some folks. And they often bark at air, or leave sfalling, or the sound of cars driving by slowly or stopping.

greyes,

I am making an assumption here and I hope I don't offend you. Based on your living situation, I am guessing you did not have money free flowing. When your dog was poisoned you could have just allowed it to die, rather than pay an ER visit to your vet. In addition to this, some with limited finances would have just surrender their dogs to the pound, or worse just dropped them off somewhere. However, in both cases you made the unselfish act of spending whatever it took to protect the animals in your care, you should be commended for that, no stones here.

I truly hope that those out there casting judgment never have to make some of the heart wrenching decisions that others have to. Everything is relative until it happens in your own house.

 

[blobear23]

When you accept a pet into your life you also must accept the cost f caring for that pet. Not just every day expenses such as food and water but also unexpected expenses such as damage to property, training, and vet bills(recurring and emergency). That's why I tell my kiddo that no pet is free! Good for you for taking the responsibility of good pet ownership!!

 

[Kassaundra]

I really don't understand why people stalk threads they dislike. I see this a lot and it confuses me everytime. If you don't like a topic being discussed I can see voicing that opinion if it is important to you but don't understand the need or desire to repeatedly go back and be negative time and time again. It reminds me of the saying "the dog returning to it's vomit".

 

[Victoria-nola]

To 4 the Birds:

Your statement that de-crowing is illegal is not the case. There are no such laws, in fact poultry have virtually no rights in the agribusiness chicken world and new rules have just come out that allow further speeding up of lines and abuse of poultry in slaughterhouses. Do you really think a world that allows de-beaking as routine procedure cares about de-crowing? Or that laws care about roosters, who are routinely tossed, live newly hatched, into trash bins and death grinders in battery cage operations and even some so-called "free-range" operations? It is true that in former years some methods were used to attempt to soften rooster crows that are barbaric torture, but that is not what we are discussing.

That said, your statements indicate you don't know what is actually involved with the procedure that Dr James offers. Birds and dogs do not have the same mechanism for their voice, it's not the same to compare with de-barking. As was already mentioned, the rooster can still crow, just less air passes through and it's not as loud. All other behaviors of the rooster are completely intact, whatever those were before are the same after. I wrote the following description of our experience with it. I am re-posting it now fyi.

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As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, I drove my very sweet, lovable rooster to Dr James to have the crow softening surgery, which occurred June 20, or 24 days ago. We loved his crowing, and all our neighbors loved his crowing, except for one neighbor, the newest one, who’s been heard to say, “I just want more control”.

Deeply concerned, I found Dr James’ thread and read up on this possibility. My partner and I agreed that we really wanted to keep our rooster. I moved Dred (the roo, as in dredlocks) to a foster home in the country, and made arrangements with Dr James. The week prior, I took Dred to the parish (county) extension agent in charge of chickens, who took blood and tested for pullorum, issued a health certificate, and put a band on Dred’s leg. The test was free, the certificate was $24.

Dr James’ office staff were friendly and sympathetic, and I really liked Dr James. You know how vets often have a single animal species that they really resonate with, even though they can treat all animals? Dr James is like that about chickens. He really likes them. He genuinely would like more people to be able to keep chickens and to have the whole life-cycle of chickens if people wish. His desire to help with a crow-softening is purely a desire that more roosters could live out full lives. So number one, Dr James is a really nice, thoughtful person whose heart is totally in the right place, and whose skills are very highly developed (he makes his own surgical implements for this surgery). The idea that some have expressed that he may be only doing it for the money is absurd, considering the amount of time he had to spend to arrange the whole thing with me, and the training and study he’s done, the money is not a lot; and moreover, if Dr James didn’t charge for his services he couldn’t stay in business, and that wouldn’t help anyone.

The procedure was done under proper sterility and anesthetic. I went to visit a local archeological site and returned several hours later to find Dred awake and alert. Dr James talked with me about how it went, what to expect in the next few days, and specifically about clipping the stitch that was holding some bandaging in place but that would need to be released after 24 hours.

During the healing process Dred made various sounds, including some gurgling sounds that came and went, but after the first week the only sounds we heard were his deliberate voicings. The gurgling was part of the healing but isn’t there any longer.

Dr James suspects that the less a rooster crows (or attempts to crow) during the first 3 weeks after the procedure, the more successful the procedure will be. Accordingly, I kept Dred indoors and put him in a good-sized crate, and controlled the light he got to minimize the desire to crow. I cut a piece of foam-core poster board and used zipties to create a false, lower ceiling in the crate in order to prevent Dred from stretching out his neck completely, since one of the suggested ways to keep a roo from crowing is to put the roost so close to the ceiling that the roo can’t stretch out enough to crow. After the first couple of days, he did still find ways to crow, but not as robustly as usual, and the sound was very airy and not loud. I took him out of the crate every day to flap his wings, stretch, and walk around; we also provided him with lots of tempting healthy goodies, including filtered water, organic grain, probiotics and nuturitional supplements, fruits and vegetables, and dried mealworms.

The night we got back I clipped the stitch, and after it came out Dred cuddled his body close against me, put his head on my shoulder, and just hugged me like that for some long minutes.

Suffice to say, we hated keeping him confined but it didn’t make any sense to us to spend all that time and money and then not follow through and give it the best possible shot we could. We wanted Dred to succeed and get back to his family. Dr James observes that older roosters have less easy success with this procedure than younger ones do (they can tend to regain more voice), and our Dred is 2 years old, so we wanted to give him every chance.

After two weeks, we just couldn’t take it any more and I took him outside to his girls. When I carried him out the sidedoor and he recognized where he was, he squirmed and I set him down, and he hit the ground running full bore out to the yard. He was and is still ecstatic, and the girls were stunned to see him-- chicken love ensued immediately. They congregated the instant he showed up and have remained a single flock since then; during Dred’s absence they had disintegrated and didn’t keep together while out ranging during the day.

While Dred was in foster care, we put up privacy fencing on our side of the chainlink fence that separates our property from the controlling neighbor. So once we released Dred back into our yard, the neighbor could no longer easily gaze and watch our business. We have heard nothing from that neighbor (I knock wood) since releasing Dred 10 days ago. So, I cautiously say that it seems to be working.

Sound levels: If anything, Dred’s crow has gotten even softer since he moved outdoors. I don’t know how that could be, but it seems so. We hear him crow, but it’s so attenuated, so airy and light, that it doesn’t carry far, whereas he previously had this huge forceful sound that would carry a long way.

Behavior: The girls still love him. He still does all the things he used to in terms of watching out for them and finding food. He rounds them up when it’s time to roost, and he periodically checks during the day and brings in the stragglers who might wander. He still makes the range of sounds he always did, and he’s still audible enough to communicate with the hens. He’s the same as he used to be on the roost, where he rotates which hen is his favorite.

How do I feel? Well, Dred trusts me now-- he was wary before (and I of him). I had been afraid his personality might change as a result of all this, but it didn’t. If anything, since he now trusts me and got to know, while indoors, that the dogs are harmless, he’s even more laid back than he was.

I wish we hadn’t been forced into this, but we were, and I’m just deeply grateful that Dr James had talked about his procedure on backyardchickens.com, and that I found the discussion, and that I followed through, and that we still have our wonderful rooster. I wish Dred still had his full voice, but that wasn’t possible if he was to stay with his family, and I saw with my own eyes his ecstatic joy when he realized he was back at home with his ladies.

So yes, this is not a procedure for agricultural operations, but presumably such operations don’t have neighbors who have a right to complain. This is a procedure that can allow a rooster to stay in a family who has a pet or backyard chicken coop in the suburbs or the city, or that can allow a family to buy a rooster who has already had the procedure, with the knowledge that the rooster’s calls won’t become a problem in the future. I am grateful, so very grateful.

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UPDATE: Neighbor is happy, Dred is happy, the girls are happy. WE ARE HAPPY! And a further note: The foster home in the country, where I placed Dred while we waited for the time for the procedure, the folks there have since lost the property and had to disperse all their animals into new homes. So if I'd left Dred there, he'd have been dispersed once again. At our house he is with his same girls, he has stability, and a happy family. And only because of Dr James is it possible.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Fourteenchicks, what if you went to sleep and woke up and you could never have children ever again? Or you woke up and your BALLS were missing? Imagine if that happened to your husband, wife, daughter, son... This is what we do to dogs, cats and even rabbits every day. It is strongly encouraged by most groups including the biggest animal rights groups that you do this to your animals and if you don't then you are a bad pet owner!

Luckily we know through many cases where animals have had to have limbs or other things amputated or surgeries to remove organs, etc, that they do not express mourning over the loss of a typical function... Which is why spay/neuter is considered OK.
There is no months of sadness and sorrow that humans experience when they wake up and suddenly find that they have lost a part of themselves. They simply wake up and are happy to be experiencing life. Most dogs will not even notice the limb is missing except to have to find a new way to move. They work to find a way around the disability rather than mourn it. Similarly dogs when debarked will continue to bark, and may try even harder, because the goal is to make sound... But they're not mourning the loss of the voice, they are just trying to make sound still, much like a dog who has 3 legs will try to walk still. Why people think determination to succeed is mourning I am not sure, but it isn't. Animals are not quitters and they live in the moment, enjoying life for what it is.

I think with the testimonies of the people here, we know that the goal of these roosters crowing is simply the act of crowing... Not to produce a loud sound. The people on here have said that the roosters proceed to act totally normal and do not become obsessed with trying to make sound like some dogs do so that points to this being the case... Especially since not a single rooster yet has become neurotically obsessed with crowing. Even if the odds were low you'd think we would have seen ONE by now. So it is the act of crowing, not the volume of the crow that is satisfying. That makes sense since chickens have very little brain anyhow and a rooster that has a naturally quieter voice will still crow the same amount as a chicken with a loud voice.

I have some kinda pricey chicks growing out right now and I suspect 2/3 are roosters... I am strongly considering having one of them decrowed so I can have a rooster in my flock. If I have the money for it I will contact Dr Dave to have this procedure done. As someone who keeps chickens because of a concern for the welfare of the animals that provide me food, I feel like this is a totally acceptable procedure when taking the welfare of the animal into consideration.