Sound of Silence 6am - No More Crowing

[Serenity Sav]

One thing for sure, rooster collar/Velcro, Whatever. I found myself handling a bunch of roosters everyday. Just for Adjusting helping food stuck in throat to go down, checking for lice/mites under collars, making sure the craw was full of food, and making sure they weren't slowly starving to death, all with collars on loosely.. mark

^ I meant to comment on this earlier. In my somewhat limited experience (about 5 weeks), neither of my roos has had food stuck or a hard time swallowing, or eating to their fill. I use homemade collars; but I also usually have my roos wear their collars for maybe 12 hours a day. Then I remove the collars and will only put them back on when they crow again.
It does require more attention than some would want to spend towards their birds though.

 

[Faraday40]

I just found this thread & am hopeful. Keep posting with lots of photos please.

We have a sweet EE roo but live in a subdivision. He actually doesn't crow at sunrise but waits for me to come outside - maybe 9:30ish. That's when he trumpets my arrival for 10 min straight. Since the next door neighbors can't hear him (unless outside), they said they don't mind his crowing. I'm concerned when this brutal winter weather finally ends and someone may sleep with windows open, or a curious dog walker may pass by. The coop's winter tarps will also come off & his sounds will travel farther. We thought about shipping him to a vet for decrowing, but the stress of the journey & risks of surgery just seemed too high. The neck bands are worth a try.

We honestly didn't mean to have a rooster, but he became the family's favorite. If possible, we'd like to keep him.

 

[Studio2770]

I just found this thread & am hopeful. Keep posting with lots of photos please.

We have a sweet EE roo but live in a subdivision. He actually doesn't crow at sunrise but waits for me to come outside - maybe 9:30ish. That's when he trumpets my arrival for 10 min straight. Since the next door neighbors can't hear him (unless outside), they said they don't mind his crowing. I'm concerned when this brutal winter weather finally ends and someone may sleep with windows open, or a curious dog walker may pass by. The coop's winter tarps will also come off & his sounds will travel farther. We thought about shipping him to a vet for decrowing, but the stress of the journey & risks of surgery just seemed too high. The neck bands are worth a try.

We honestly didn't mean to have a rooster, but he became the family's favorite. If possible, we'd like to keep him.

I'd say give the neck bands a try. I haven't tried them but we've had two rooster. We're working toward changing the ordinance to allow chickens and I'm sure roosters won't be allowed unfortunately. Since we kept our second rooster who was a cochin, much longer we were closer to him by the time we rehomed him after he crowed. You could also try caponizing him. That would make him look different because you're removing the testosterone.

 

[captmark]

Look on YouTube at the Ukrainian guys video on decrowing roosters. I think its the only video on resticting crows on roosters with a neck devise on youtube. He uses a rubber band. After trying the above collars, I swear we must look like this guy. I admit, if you want to baby your rooster an d adjust everyday, take on and off during day and have time to do it, It could work. But I keep to many and although I handle all of them most days, meat was still falling off there bones.
I went back to keeping them in the insulated barn fulltime. That Cuts the crows down to a 1/4 or more. But they are happy again. Keeping them indoors has its own cons though. Chickens produce tons of dust even kept on wire. You have to haul the waste outside. I find D3 and multivitamin helpful indoors also, to feed them some greens. This is a option that worked/works for me.

 

[sundancenbare]

I gave the collar a try on a 1yr old lavender americuana. After 3 days and lots of adjusting he is being rehomed. I will try again on a younger roo, maybe if they don't know how to crow to start with it might work.Honestly though I think I'll stick to decrowed roos from now on. The one I have is almost silent.

I have 2 roosters from Dr. James. I was so excited to get them and so disappointed with the results. They both crow.

 

[insanity]

Sorry to hear you decrowimg didn't work out for you. Both my Whitey and Daryl are very quiet. Dr James does say results vary.

 

[sundancenbare]

Sorry to hear you decrowimg didn't work out for you. Both my Whitey and Daryl are very quiet. Dr James does say results vary.

where in Wyoming do you live? I am in Salt Lake City

 

[insanity]

I'm in Cody.

 

[chickenlady772]

So far im lucky. My guy crows once at 7am sharp for 5mins. Then he is done for the day. Nothing at night. Sleeps next to his girls.

So far so good. Im just going to enjoy this. But, I'm always up at 4:30 daily and I dont mind the crowing.

 

[Faraday40]

I made a couple rooster collars with varied results:
1. Tube part of a toddler's sock = made the crow higher pitched & longer - but the volume stayed the same. Worse for everyone!
2. Ace bandage with Velcro tabs = slight decrease in volume, but higher in pitch. Still not good.
3. Ace bandage (used a base) with 2 Velcro strips sewn around. Makes wide collar that can be adjusted.




The last one worked the best. Of course our rooster is easy to hold & allows us to do anything to him. The first 15 min of wearing it, he ran around backwards. Once he accepted it, he was able to talk/cluck, eat, drink, & mate. Later that day he crowed but it was only about 20% quieter. I adjusted it the next day (no backwards running this time) and it made about a 50% decrease in volume. That's good enough for us. He is able to do all his normal rooster duties & the funny-sounding crow doesn't travel very far. My next step was to buy some cable wrap ties, but I'm OK with the current results.