Sound of Silence 6am - No More Crowing

[Phoenixxx]

Nice to see all the homemade experiments! I'm still on the fence. Most of the time, it's quiet here; but this morning while my husband was sleeping in, Red decided he was going to spend HIS morning crowing at the rain! Naturally, when one rooster starts crowing then all the others feel the need to chime in, too! So, once again I started thinking about shutting them up! Anyway, my husband finally woke up and the rain stopped so all's quiet and peaceful once again!

 

[LindaB220]

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.

Yes, that looks like a good option. It's rather hard to breed chickens without a rooster. My only other option.

I do love this site.

 

[FaerieChicken]

Well I just put socks on both of my boys but perhaps they aren't tight enough or too long! They are still young Roos and bantam to boot! It was more challenging to put the sock on my frizzled sizzle than silkie.
I thought maybe a bell! Lol

 

[angel2013]

So I am now part of this craziness of having to shut up my rooster. It wasn't so bad when the weather was bad but our neighbour 2 doors down has a rooster that won't shut up and send ours into a crowing frenzie making me insane. So I decided to try the sock thing, good thing for me I have a 3 yr old daughter and a bantam silkie rooster. I tried a fairly loose sock on first and that didn't do much, so then I put a tighter Oshkosh sock on and it's cut the volume down about 30% and sounds less high pitched and does some sort of crackle at the end! he also only crows a few times and shuts up. I may try and do a Velcro version too. But so far this is working a bit.

 

[LindaB220]

So I am now part of this craziness of having to shut up my rooster. It wasn't so bad when the weather was bad but our neighbour 2 doors down has a rooster that won't shut up and send ours into a crowing frenzie making me insane. So I decided to try the sock thing, good thing for me I have a 3 yr old daughter and a bantam silkie rooster. I tried a fairly loose sock on first and that didn't do much, so then I put a tighter Oshkosh sock on and it's cut the volume down about 30% and sounds less high pitched and does some sort of crackle at the end! he also only crows a few times and shuts up. I may try and do a Velcro version too. But so far this is working a bit.

I have my velcro ready because I know I'm gonna need it.

 

[lizgarf]

I posted about my collar attempts a few months ago. Desi is still wearing my third home-made collar, the one with 3 velcro strips sewn onto part of a cloth towel. He still crows with it, but it is quieter than it otherwise would be, and he does not seem bothered by it. I haven't adjusted it in months. The biggest help for me personally, has been putting him in the man cave at night -- the cat carrier, inside the crawl space to my house, which is accessible from the coop. This is really a serendipitous situation, which I don't expect many others could utilize. He is very docile about going in there at night, and in the morning, when I let him out, I sing, "here comes your man. . . " The other thing that worked well for me was putting together a cute flyer and passing it around to my neighbors. I know they they can contact me if they're bothered, which makes me feel better, but so far, I've only heard positive feedback.

I might take the collar off eventually and see if it makes a big difference one way or another, but things are working out pretty well right now, so I'm not messing with it.

 

[LindaB220]

I posted about my collar attempts a few months ago. Desi is still wearing my third home-made collar, the one with 3 velcro strips sewn onto part of a cloth towel. He still crows with it, but it is quieter than it otherwise would be, and he does not seem bothered by it. I haven't adjusted it in months. The biggest help for me personally, has been putting him in the man cave at night -- the cat carrier, inside the crawl space to my house, which is accessible from the coop. This is really a serendipitous situation, which I don't expect many others could utilize. He is very docile about going in there at night, and in the morning, when I let him out, I sing, "here comes your man. . . " The other thing that worked well for me was putting together a cute flyer and passing it around to my neighbors. I know they they can contact me if they're bothered, which makes me feel better, but so far, I've only heard positive feedback.

I might take the collar off eventually and see if it makes a big difference one way or another, but things are working out pretty well right now, so I'm not messing with it.

Don't try to fix it if it ain't busted.

Good news because I will have a rooster to breed with and my family is not really on board with the idea of 4 am crowing.

 

[lizgarf]

OK, I have another update. This morning, when I let Desi out of the man cave, I saw he had a beak full of foam/phlegm or something. I got worried and took of his collar and was pretty quickly reminded of what his crows sound like without the collar. It's like a trumpet v. a kazoo! I then spent the morning trying to put it back on and get the adjustment right. I think it's now slightly looser than it was before, because it's a little louder, but not nearly as loud as it was without it. (adjustment is the hardest part with these things) Hopefully the foam/phlegm was just a temporary issue or unrelated to the collar. I'll continue to monitor it.

 

[Faraday40]

One day I took off the old frayed collar late morning and put another one on later in the day. (I agree about all the troubles getting it readjusted. I had to keep tightening it.) That eve, I saw a little of the foam you mentioned. I quickly took it off & have been afraid to put it back on. Thankfully, we either can't hear him when he's in the coop or he doesn't crow until after 8:30am. Of course, once he's starts crowing, my boy really belts them out. I may make a new wider collar like the one I shared in the photo. The one that caused the foam was more narrow.

 

[angel2013]

Well in my quest to keep my rooster quiet, I tried the toddler sock thing. Did alter his crow but not enough for my liking, so I just purchased this any barking noise machine from pet safe.

It's suppose to help dogs stop barking from a frequency that they can hear, I've also read online about someone in the phillipines using something similar. So I am going to give it a shot. Worst case scenario it will keep the neighbours dogs quiet