Calling all experienced caponizers!

[Folly's place]

Once there was a large market for capons, and it's pretty much gone now. Most people buy smaller chickens, or turkeys at the market, rather than those capons.
So the market is limited to the few folks who want them for home use, or the very few who will buy them.
Mary

 

[Molpet]

I personally breed a few different breeds to their sop. I end up with many extra cockerels.

I either rehome some or I add them to my bachelor flock.

Again, my only issue with this topic is the suffering and pain. It just seems so messed up to me. If anyone were to neuter a dog like this everyone would be disgusted, and it would be animal abuse. I don’t see the difference.

One is a pet and the other is livestock.
Very few vets see chickens around here. Friend did get one to see a turkey with nutritional issues. 2 shots and the visit cost $150. Can't imagine what caponizing would cost.
People used to castrate all animals at home back in the day.
Neighbor did a cat wide awake, 20 yrs ago ...
Cat was acting normal in 10 minutes. Mine I took to the vet was scared to death going to the vet and hid for a week afterwards.

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

One is a pet and the other is livestock.
Very few vets see chickens around here. Friend did get one to see a turkey with nutritional issues. 2 shots and the visit cost $150. Can't imagine what caponizing would cost.
People used to castrate all animals at home back in the day.
Neighbor did a cat wide awake, 20 yrs ago ...
Cat was acting normal in 10 minutes. Mine I took to the vet was scared to death going to the vet and hid for a week afterwards.

Again, just because that’s how things used to be done, it doesn’t make it right today.

I’m sure you must understand to some degree how this can be seen as cruel.

I’m certain you wouldn’t want to operated on wide awake. Although chickens aren’t the same as us it can be agreed upon that they do feel pain just like us.

 

[Ruthster55]

Once there was a large market for capons, and it's pretty much gone now. Most people buy smaller chickens, or turkeys at the market, rather than those capons.
So the market is limited to the few folks who want them for home use, or the very few who will buy them.
Mary

There are two major reasons that market disappeared. The first and most obvious is the advent of the Cornish Cross and other fast-growing meat birds that are slaughtered before they reach sexual maturity. That relegates caponizing to an issue that involves those who raise heritage breeds, not CX and not Rangers, and not Ginger Broilers or anything like that. I just read about someone who said that their Ginger Broiler was their favorite bird in a flock of 4 or 5. Docile and sweet bird.... Meaties often have docile personalities. That is a suburban small flock and caponizing has no relevance to that situation.

Caponizing is much more relevant in the case of someone who has excess dual-purpose males. That could be a large flock including broodies multiplying things on a farm, oops with hatchery orders, or whatever.

The other reason for the decline of capons in commerce is not currently active (because it’s been banned). That involved experiments with “chemical capons” back in the 1950s and 1960s. Those unscrupulous “experimentalists” killed the market for capons entirely once it was learned that their implants were possibly carcinogenic to humans!

 

[trescloudy]

I don’t eat beef.

It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. It’s not fair for them to pay the price unwillingly for us. Let alone end up suffering...

I feel that it’s irresponsible to cause pain to them, after all the idea of raising your own meat is so that you know that they are treated well and humanely.

Then you should use an anesthetic and those who choose not to should not have to use an anesthetic, it's pretty much that simple. Chickens are livestock.

 

[trescloudy]

There aren’t enough homes for all of them.

I insist that dogs and cats around here be neutered or spayed, and I have lent funds for friends and neighbors to get them done. Yes, dogs and cats are done by a veterinarian. There is a home pickup and dropoff service which helps greatly.

Hardly any vets will do chickens.

In this general area, there is a huge problem of dog packs where intact males follow a female in heat. That can be dangerous.

I would much rather that a skilled person caponize young cockerels rather than an unskilled person attempt to work on older birds where the danger is greater.

How does one become skilled?

 

[trescloudy]

Because 'traditionally' livestock, including horses and cats, were operated on without anesthesia, doesn't make it humane today, or reasonable to many of us.
I'm happy to eat any extra cockerels here without first subjecting them to abdominal surgery without any pain management at all.
Mary

And that is your choice. What goes on at your place is your own biz just like what goes on at my farm is my biz.

 

[trescloudy]

I think the OP asked for experienced caponizers, instead he mostly picked up a bunch trolls.

If you dont approve of caponization you should just move along.

 

[The Happster]

Destroying a bird because it's a cockerel is less abusive or a better alternative?

Yes.
Yes, absolutely.

I don't like the fact that cockerels are killed all the time. I don't like that any animal is killed. But I understand it's a fact of life.
People eat their roosters. I accept that.


But caponization is not a better route just because it extends their lives.
It's risky, it's painful for the bird, and for what? A few extra months of life?

Much as I dislike cockerels being killed, I would sooner have a cockerel killed than caponized. It's sick.


I'll leave the OP to get the answers they want.

 

[Ruthster55]

How does one become skilled?

There’s a Spanish saying “A capar se aprende capando.” It means that one learns to caponize by doing it. It could also apply to castrating other livestock i.e. pigs.

I think it’s best with a teacher. It’s got a steep learning curve. The problem is that very few people developed the skill since around 1950 in the US, so there are few experienced caponizers who can teach. There are in some distant foreign countries including France, Spain, China, Vietnam.

I don’t think it’s acceptable to grind up baby chicks just because they’re male. The hatcheries try to save some. That’s why the “packing peanuts” in an order during cold or cool weather are usually male.