Breeding, culling and weights, can someone help me please?

[DADixon]

I'm planning on breeding my own dual purpose flock with some very specific goals and need some help from some of you experienced chicken BREEDERS who have culled and bred chickens for a while. I'm going to copy and paste what I posted on another thread to show you what I'm aiming for but my question here is more specific about weights at certain ages. Has anyone weighed their cockerels at a very young age 3-5 weeks (the age you usually caponize) to see if the weight gain, feathering, etc rings true all the way up to fully matured birds?
I'm wanting a self sustaining flock for egg production and caponize the excess cockerels. I have caponized tons of cockerels so I know what I'm doing there, but I wasn't doing it in a breeders environment. I just ordered them from the hatchery and they were all destined for dinner. Now I need to be selective on which ones I use as breeders which means keeping some to maturity. If I have 20 and only want to keep 2 my idea would be to watch them all around the 3 week mark and after weigh ins keep the best 5 then caponize the rest. Does anyone know how accurate an assessment of a bird at that age would be compared to his full maturity when it comes to potential weigh gains, etc? I'm going to be working with barred rocks or a barred x with another meat/decent layer bird.
Here is my post in another thread explaining myself (skip this if you need to) :
I had an account on here YEARS ago asking about caponizing... Couldn't find a whole lot so I tried to teach myself, successfully I might add... Since then have done hundreds (hope that doesn't get me in trouble). I had to move and get rid of the layers and meat flocks but now an upcoming move is going to hopefully put me back in the game.
I had Buff's, RIRs and Barred Rocks, with a few OEG given to me, all layers (the latter was a wild ride but VERY impressive). I managed to get others unwanted cockerels and caponized literally hundreds of them of all breeds but mostly barred.
This time I intend to start a self sufficient flock that have 1. big enough cockerels to caponize the culls. 2. Good layers (250±) 3. Some broodies for hatching (possibly a sub flock of OEG as the broodies) and all of this with a Clan/Spiral mating system.
I'm very familiar with raising chicks in brooders, Salatin style tractors, electric netting etc. My main questions are about breeds, strains, etc. Harvey Ussery's revised book has me pumped! But I research to death before I get started so I can hit the ground running.
I'm leaning towards either mixing Barred and Delaware for a more of a meat bird that lays good or perhaps just breeding straight Thompson style Barred for my area and needs.
I'm in Central Georgia (8b) and would love to know if there is anyone in my area that already has a head start on me in that area and I would gladly by breeding stock once I make my move... Just ideas to start the conversation. I appreciate the expertise on here and hope I can learn something.

 

[SourRoses]

To some extent, yes early weight indicates final weight.
However, in practice it can be hampered by personalities.
Assertive birds get more to eat, docile birds get less. My bigger (final) birds have often been the more docile ones. Slimmer cockerels tend to mature faster, in my experience, gaining redder combs (testosterone) and top spots a lot earlier.

This can be somewhat countered by having a lot of feeding stations, some out of clear sight of the others.

However, the build of new chicks tends to be very indicative. Wider chicks grow into wider birds. Not height or weight... as the size of the egg determines the size of the chick early on. But if they come out of the egg built like a brick, they grow into wide birds with bulkier chests. Though I have had some bricks who stayed relatively short and thus smaller overall.

In short: It depends. Sorry.

 

[DADixon]

To some extent, yes early weight indicates final weight.
However, in practice it can be hampered by personalities.
Assertive birds get more to eat, docile birds get less. My bigger (final) birds have often been the more docile ones. Slimmer cockerels tend to mature faster, in my experience, gaining redder combs (testosterone) and top spots a lot earlier.

This can be somewhat countered by having a lot of feeding stations, some out of clear sight of the others.

However, the build of new chicks tends to be very indicative. Wider chicks grow into wider birds. Not height or weight... as the size of the egg determines the size of the chick early on. But if they come out of the egg built like a brick, they grow into wide birds with bulkier chests. Though I have had some bricks who stayed relatively short and thus smaller overall.

In short: It depends. Sorry.

Loved it! Now we are getting somewhere! Hopefully you don't mind me asking more questions. I don't have to get it perfect but I want to narrow my selection down to as close to perfect as possible. In your experience at what age could you really start to see clear markers that would fully carry over to maturity?
You said 'in short, it depends'. You gave me some great circumstances that could change things like the feed availability. If you have any other factors I AM ALL EARS. From what I've notice with caponizing is that most testosterone seems to start hitting hard around 6 weeks with the birds I had. I tried my best to caponize around 3-4 weeks and the latest around 5. What could I look for or maybe even manipulate as tests to see who I could cull in such a short time? (By cull I mean caponize) Breeders are all I'm keeping with cockerels, but culled layers, except extreme cases will be used just for eggs personally or sold.

 

[NatJ]

I tried my best to caponize around 3-4 weeks and the latest around 5. What could I look for or maybe even manipulate as tests to see who I could cull in such a short time?

It would probably be reasonable to caponize the smallest 1/3 or 1/2 of chicks. I don't think they would be likely to catch up and surpass the bigger ones. That would at least reduce the amount of cockerels you're dealing with.

Depending on how many chickens you raise in a year, you could raise one entire batch with individual legbands and no caponizing, and check weights & conformation (feel the shape) at a variety of ages, maybe weekly for the first month or so and at larger intervals past that. This would let you know what was accurate for the particular birds you are working with, in the particular conditions you provide to them.

If I have 20 and only want to keep 2 my idea would be to watch them all around the 3 week mark and after weigh ins keep the best 5 then caponize the rest.

If you do that, and track those five individually, that will give you some information about how they grow. You might find that the biggest one does stay biggest, or that he doesn't, but even among five birds you should get enough information to see if this mostly works or if it's completely hopeless. So if no-one has any better ideas, I would suggest caponizing all but the best 5 at that age, and then pay attention to how those five change (or not) as they grow.

 

[DADixon]

It would probably be reasonable to caponize the smallest 1/3 or 1/2 of chicks. I don't think they would be likely to catch up and surpass the bigger ones. That would at least reduce the amount of cockerels you're dealing with.

Depending on how many chickens you raise in a year, you could raise one entire batch with individual legbands and no caponizing, and check weights & conformation (feel the shape) at a variety of ages, maybe weekly for the first month or so and at larger intervals past that. This would let you know what was accurate for the particular birds you are working with, in the particular conditions you provide to them.


If you do that, and track those five individually, that will give you some information about how they grow. You might find that the biggest one does stay biggest, or that he doesn't, but even among five birds you should get enough information to see if this mostly works or if it's completely hopeless. So if no-one has any better ideas, I would suggest caponizing all but the best 5 at that age, and then pay attention to how those five change (or not) as they grow.

You are right. Honestly that was my intent. I was hoping to find someone with enough prior knowledge to learn from or at least lead my thinking in a direction that could shave off several generations of learning. I figured I'm going to have to have a large portion I let grow out to see how their numbers look at least for the first year or two. It is a long term project but the quicker I can get the desired results the better.
I've read a lot about capons and none of the literature seems to bring in the breeding of the cockerels to the extent that I'm looking for in a self sustaining system.

 

[DADixon]

I'm really hoping to spur some more discussions on this topic. Even though I have caponized hundreds of birds successfully and enjoyed the fruits of it, there is A LOT that I don't understand. Previously I did not come at this from a breeder's perspective or spend the time to really get into the depths of the science of the whole process. I just knew it worked. It produced mild tempered cockerels who fattened nicely, the feed conversion from what I could tell was better, the breast meat seemed to be more, the meat was definitely more tender and the taste was amazing. But there were no hard facts to present to anyone looking into this as an alternative to unnecessarily culling 'useless cockerels'.
I recently did a Google search for some studies and found a few that I thought were enlightening, at least to me anyway. But the problem I could see was that they were mostly in foreign countries and the ages of the birds being caponized was closer to 5-8 months rather than 5-8 weeks, which in my opinion is still too late...
The finding did show a VERY marked improvement in weight gain, feed conversion, good temperament, breast meat increase (though it seems it came with a slight decrease in leg and thigh meat. I don't remember that with mine), and higher fat content.
I'm hoping to do some blind studies in taste and texture. As well as a detailed study on the best age to caponize to see if the testosterone kick at 6 weeks can aid in growth before it effects meat quality... Just thoughts...
If anyone out there has any real world experience in any both this please please add to this discussion. I can't wait to get back into this.