GRAPHIC PICS of my day learning to caponize

[Kassaundra]

Some of the supplies. My instructor had a cool low tech "table" a piece of packing styrofoam and large bubble wrap. She said the slight stretching of the bird is ness. to cut the correct location. She put wide bands at the wing and feet and secured them w/ bungee.


The feathers in the area were very easy to pluck and the bird didn't seem to care. She is pulling the skin back so that her inscision of skin and muscle will not line up. She is going between the last two ribs. This pic doesn't show it well but there is a marked depression you cannot miss between the top of the thigh and the bottom rib.


This is the beginning of the skin inscision. She cuts the skin only on the first pass.


This is the completed skin cut


She adjusted the skin opening over the area of the muscle she was cutting. With the exposed muscle it was easier to see the correct place to cut.


retracting the opening to see and breaking the membrane for a view into the cavity. You can see intestine it this shot.


here you can see the tool she used to tear away the membrane (the piece of flesh diagonally from the end of the tool)


The object to the left with the slightly more yellow color is the teste, the uppermost one, the others are intestine


This is the modified straw and wire gripper, she gently twisted the straw to detatch it from the bird, but it just wouldn't easily detatch, so she had a plan B


here she is still trying to twist it.


she had a cauderizing tool, it worked well to seperate the teste from the bird. She bought it online she said it was around $50


here you can see the connective tissue being cauderized


and here it is out


Here is the second teste, she goes in through the same opening. You can see the second membrane that has to be removed before the teste can be clearly seen. She removes it w/ the same modified straw, she said the second one cannot be cauderized, at least through the same opening.


couple of stitches w/ sewing thread, but she uses a suture needle, she said regular sewing needles just were not sharp enough, there was way to much tugging of the skin


all stitched up


She uses alchohol on a cotton ball to swab the area and check for blood vessels before cutting anything at all, and plans her cuts where there are no blood vessels to lessen blood loss. It is like magic these were not very visible if at all before she swabbed with the alchohol.


I took several pics to try and show placement, but very few showed the detail and landmarks that were clearly visible in real life. this was the closest she stated how important the slight stretching of the bird is to locate landmarks easily there is a definate valley between the last rib and the thigh, the muscle cut needs to be between the last two ribs.



Sorry for the amount of pics, I took many more and tried to narrow it down to just the essentials to tell a complete story.

I want to make clear this isn't my information, I was the student. The woman showing me how to do this has an amazing success rate, she has only lost one bird total and that was to a respiratory infection, she has even caponized older birds then is recomended (special circumstances made this ness she doesn't do it regularly)and had no fatalities.

 

[kizanne]

Op- Thanks for the wonderful detailed pictures.


RaeRae2 - Ok, I'm sorry. But why would you not take the bird to an avian vet and have this done with local anesthetic? This is brutal animal abuse in my opinion. Pluck their feathers out, slice them open, and remove testicles with NO anesthetic?

You are obviously in the wrong section. Caponizing has long been part of raising meat chickens. If you find this offensive then go over to some fluffy feel good section like raising baby chicks.

1st. Most of us aren't lucky enough to have avian vets in our area.
2nd It would be a fortune to caponize a bird which would then make it cheaper and easier to just kill the roosters
3rd Anestitizing any bird if very dangerous to the bird, many husbandry practices have shown better results in many animals for which people think OMG. yet better for the animal.
4th THIS IS THE MEAT BIRD SECTION. We raise meat birds to kill and eat. You may call that disgusting (though it is rude to come to our forum to do it) but everything shown above is not worse than what happens to the birds that come in the nice little styrofoam trays at the grocery store. Go watch Food Inc. become more realistic about your food or become a vegan.

 

[Kassaundra]

very new to the chicken game but why would this be done?

Once a roo has been successfully caponized it will not be aggressive to other males, it will not crow, will be much more docile, these are very good things if you want a pet roo and live in town. On the eating side, they are able to be processed at a much older age and still be tender, so for those who want to hatch thier own eggs to eat and not deal w/ massive crowing, and aggression of a bachlor pad, and want to give thier roos time enough to get to a good eating size w/o it being so tough it needs to be slow cooked.

 

[Painted Calls]

Great pics, OP! I am getting some roos from a hatch of a dozen of American Bresse and I can only keep one intact. So I plan to pull the feathers off, mark the incision spot, put the bird into the CO2 chamber made with two boxes linked by tubing an release the vinegar and baking soda to produce CO2. Once the bird is drowsy, remove from the chamber, disinfect the area, sterile dress, lay out my surgical instruments, check incision site, cut into the bird, use the wound stretcher to hold open the incision into muscle, locate the testes...if I've kept the birds off feed for 3 days, should be easier to locate with bright headlamp, then i plan to inject the testicle with a 20% saline solution instead of surgically removing them because it has been used in Veterinary medicine to cause testes to become necrotic and stop producing sperm with fewer sequelae/complications that cutting out tissue. Then I intend to put butterfly "suture" bandages to close the wound, disinfect one last time with Chlorehexidine and keep the bird in a quiet spot for at least a week. Will report back on my progress.

This just sounds like a slow painful death waiting to happen. I haven't read up on the techniques you mention, so I'm just purely going off of medical experience of my own.

I would not slightly gas a bird with CO2. Birds do not do well under anesthesia in a controlled environment under an anesthesiologist's care.

I'd also have all your stuff set up and ready. Not wait until the bird is drowsy from being deprived of oxygen.

The part that really makes me scratch my head is the fact you want to basically kill an organ and leave it intact. Under the study you read about, do the testes just atrophy? In your reply you said they become necrotic. That would equal raging infection if left to rot inside the bird.

Do you have links to this procedure? It is quite interesting as I've never heard of it before.

 

[mnferalkitty]

Oh how I wish I could find someone to tech me how to do this!!

 

[Kassaundra]

I'd like to add that she is a very patient teacher as well.

I would have to agree w/ that statement.

Thanks everyone, I'm glad everyone has been so positive, I was mentally prepared for the worst.

Glad to post the pics and descriptions, I really hope they help others who want to learn but don't have any mentors in thier area.

 

[Poco Pollo]

I caponized seven tonight. I was able to get both testis from the right side on the first four. The last three had testicles attached by both ends, so I flipped the little guys and took the left testicle from a second incision. I used my remote and little tripod. It worked! Here are photos of the fourth capon surgery.

Step 1: Restrain the bird on its left side. Left foot goes up under chest. Right foot is stretched. Pluck. Locate indentation between last two ribs.


Step 2: Swab with Betatine. Stretch skin down, towards tail. The oval shows the indentation (intercostal space).


Step 3: Make small incision between last two ribs.



Step 4: Insert rib dilator. Handle towards spine leaving open area for operator to work.


Step 5: Locate right testicle, artery, and left testicle. This guy was the fourth in line. Both his testicles were the same size. The membranes covering them were thin. Look at that dark artery running between them!


Step 6: Insert wire tool behind left testicle. Surround testicle with wire (loop around it). Once wire goes all the way around, saw gently and lift.



Step 7: Keep wire looped around testicle. Saw and lift.


Step 8: Saw and lift.

Step 9: Saw and lift.



10. Out it comes.



The operator takes the left testicle (farthest away) first. Once the left testicle is out, extract the right testicle (close one) using the wire tool.

 

[BCMaraniac]

I have a bunch (22 hatched, plus 10 others) of chickens that all look alike. Hatched 5/15 so some of them I CAN tell are roosters, some I can tell are hens, some ?

So, if I cut into some that are not yet identifiable and they are hens, can I just let them go? Or what?

When I take the class with Coral (Poco Pollo), I am going to come home and have a rooster caponizing party that will probably last several days as I don't want to be in too much of a hurry and kill them. I have been waiting for the next class but circumstances haven't permitted it yet. Can't wait to cut down on those roosters. I think out of the 22, I got half or more of them in roosters.

It is recommended that the peritoneum....the membrane that is supposed to be cut open for caponizing...not be disturbed in a pullet so that scar tissue doesn't form around the ovary and oviduct, which can result in an internal layer. So if you aren't planning to try to poulardize the pullets, I wouldn't attempt to caponize anything that I wasn't 99% sure was male.

The pullet in my photos was going to be butchered, not raised for eggs. That is why I went ahead and opened the peritoneum....even though I could see the ovary. That's when I realized that I could get some decent photos of the anatomy.

 

[Poco Pollo]

Yes and if I wanted a pet Roo I would take it to the vet, just because people want bigger meat birds doesn't justify the pain. People still justify Bull fighting too!

In agriculture, a castrated bull is a steer, a castrated goat is a wether, a castrated pig is a barrow, and a castrated cockerel is a capon. These farm animals are castrated to improve meat quality. We (farmers) raise these farm animals for human consumption. Capons, raised on pasture and prepared with soaked corn, milk, yogurt, and fresh fruits and vegetables before slaughter are highly nutritious and delicious. If the local market sold meat from a bull, billy, boar, or rooster, customers would bring it back complaining that it was too tough and stringy to eat. Many would complain that the meat has a strong, unpleasant flavor.

I can't follow your bullfighting analogy. Where is the similarity or comparability of the two topics? Caponizing is a farming practice, and the objective is to end with a live chicken. Caponizing is common practice in China and the UK. The practice is being revived here in the United States.

Bullfighting is a blood sport, or an art form, depending on which side you choose. If the first matador is not able to kill the bull, a second matador will enter the ring and finish the job. After the bullfight, the bull is butchered and sold in the market, but he's not going to be nearly as tender as a steer. It's admirable that he's used as food, but the spectacle, the ceremonious battle between man and beast, is what brings people to see a bullfight. One must travel out of the United States to see a bullfight. Spain, Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador still have bullfighting. There are probably other places.

The pain experienced by a chicken during caponizing (a master can do the work in eight seconds) can't be compared or equated to the twenty or thirty minutes of physical pain the bull experiences. Pica cut the muscles of the neck, and then as many as six banderillas are used. The kill may take several minutes as the matador may not pierce the heart on the first thrust. The bull dies in the end; this is the expected outcome.

Too many people don't know, or don't want to know, where their food comes from. Some of us want to eat food that isn't pumped full of steroids, hormones, and antibiotics.

 

[Kusanar]

This just sounds like a slow painful death waiting to happen. I haven't read up on the techniques you mention, so I'm just purely going off of medical experience of my own.

I would not slightly gas a bird with CO2. Birds do not do well under anesthesia in a controlled environment under an anesthesiologist's care.

I'd also have all your stuff set up and ready. Not wait until the bird is drowsy from being gassed.

The part that really makes me scratch my head is the fact you want to basically kill an organ and leave it intact. Under the study you read about, do the testes just atrophy? In your reply you said they become necrotic. That would equal raging infection if left to rot inside the bird.

Do you have links to this procedure? It is quite interesting as I've never heard of it before.

I agree, the main reason for using anesthesia is to reduce stress and I don't see how half suffocating a bird and then doing surgery on it while it's oxygen levels are super low would be less stressful than just doing it.

I also don't think I would want to eat a bird with necrotic tissue in it even if it doesn't negatively affect the bird's health and wellbeing. And if you aren't going to eat him, why caponize him?