Caponized roo personality

[Purple_grape84]

Purple_grape84, we don't caponize birds that we raise for meat. We raise them for about 7 to 8 weeks, they don't start crowing at that age, not my birds anyway.

@CWDancer No cornishx would not be caponized, but there are other types of chickens that can be used for meat. And if you would like a 10-15lb bird with more flavour, but soft meat, caponizing would be an option.

 

[Rowdy Roos]

I have a rooster and we lived in a neighborhood and he crowed all the time , we had a coupe acres, the neighbors directly behind me complained durning a neighborhood watch and all my other neighbors got mad at him cause they said they love hearing him. Long story short you could ask your neighbors if they would be bothered by it.

 

[Cot Cot]

I am probably going to get some flack for what i’m about to say...

Caponizing is like any other treatment given to livestock. There will be some that do not react well and die.
That being said, caponizing done at 8wks is fairly positive with results of no crowing and no aggression or fighting.
Most roosters do not make the grade for breeding qualities and they are harvested ( euphemism for killing) at 12wks or so.
Being that the hatch is roughly going to be 50/50 roosters hens if caponizing allows the roosters to live a longer life then I’m going with that.
Just my opinion...

 

[Cot Cot]

This thread clearly indicates that some company or veterinarian should look into solving this issue with roosters and pets. I too had this several years ago and no avian vet in my area would consider the surgery. The older gentleman who talks about this chemical pellet sounds fabulous. It is unfortunate that someone could not market this considering the popularity of pet chickens these days. At any rate I find it highly fascinating that so many of us are interested in this topic and yet nothing really is out there to solve this issue. On another note I have a hen who is crowing in the morning and I live in the city limits which is highly annoying at 6 in the morning. The hose works great!

 

[Folly's place]

It's my understanding that hormonal implants, or hormonal treatments of any sort, are not allowed in any livestock species in the USA. Absolutely not in chickens!
Abdominal surgery without anesthesia is how caponization has been done 'traditionally', and this is not a recommendation!
Performed with appropriate anesthesia can be done, not without risk, in young cockerels.
Finding an avian veterinarian who's interested in doing it, and facing the costs involved, are another separate issue.
Mary

 

[speedy2020]

Hi, we live within City limits, so can't have roosters. If I get my daughters pets caponized, will they still crow? Does it mellow them out?

Thanks

The rooster will be very mellow and not going to crow at all.

 

[Sea Wolf]

I saw online recently that there is a no crow rooster collar. It’s not a shock collar. I have more research to do on it because I think one of my chickens is a rooster.

They do work somewhat as I have used them. You can make your own with 2 inch wide velcro strips.

 

[fragilewing]

Find the chicken-loving veterinarians at your nearest school of veterinary medicine. Surgery on chickens is tricky because of their fast metabolism of drugs which requires expert anesthesiology. I have found chicken loving vets at the nearby vet school. The prices of the vet school are often more reasonable too.

The vet school will have a capacity to do some things which are beyond the (safe) capacity of ordinary vets, who will sometimes tell you they can do it,but in reality they are not qualified. I learned this the hard way,having a leg amputated from a chicken in a hurry when I learned --too late-- that chickens can live fine on one leg. After the chicken died on the operating table at my local vet, when I talked to the vet school professor who is the chicken lover, he commented about my vets, "So they thought that they were capable of doing that?" He had been my vet's, vet school professor, and his message was clearly that they were over-reaching to even think that they should attempt to amputate a chicken's leg, which was clear from the outcome. Unfortunately, I had nixed a possibility to do it at the vet school previously, thinking that the chicken would not be o.k.with one leg, and had instead continued to try to cure the bad leg, until deciding that the chicken was going to die, so trying to have my local vet amputate in a hurry.

From what I know crowing is a feature of testosterone, and rarely hens can convert to crowing and even grow plumage like roosters and then convert back to hens. So I would guess that canonizing a rooster would greatly reduce,if not block its crowing.In humans, there is only one other gland capable of producing a lot of testosterone, the adrenal glands. There are some other tissues in humans that can produce small amounts of testosterone. My --guess-- is that this is similar in chickens, that a rooster who has broken adrenals, or exhausted adrenals, might over produce testosterone due to hyper-stimulation of the broken adrenals even if canonized. My aggressive roosters have been the ones I have suspected of having weaker adrenal function,but my race is Brahmas who are ordinarily pretty mellow.

Good luck, I am sympathetic to your daughter's plight, as I am sure she loves her "roos". The person who commented that the caponizing should make them safer and less aggressive as a child's pets, had a good point. So did the person who commented that it would give them a chance for a good life. Teach her not to expose her face near the roosters as they mature. This is just common sense. A rooster can even injure an adult who gets his face into a vulnerable position.

 

[Palerydr]

I will try the collars, but would still like to know if a caponized roo still crows or is more mellow. Now it's a curiosity thing.

Several years ago my son decided he waned to make some capons for his 4H project. He got the approval from his leader as long as I was there and helped him..oh boy.. So we had just gotten 25 barred rock chicks and as soon as we could tell we took out the 4 nicest cockerels. Back then Mcmurray's Hatchery sold the tools it takes to do the job so we sent and got a set which came with instructions and photos. We had already done quite a lot of research and seen it done several times on film and in photos. So we kept everything sterile and started in. The first one was kind awkward and slow but after that it went fast. It's really not that big of a deal to the chicks either. Once they're immobilized with a clean towel over their head, they don't even make a peep,and as long as your doin it right there's no blood. You must get all of both testies out as if you miss a little piece there's a chance it will grow back (that's called a slip) and he'll just grow up to be a rooster,although prob not one of the dominant ones. But once it's done those birds won't crow, and their heads look a lot smaller cause the never grow that big comb. They don't chase after hens and they don't chase after roos wantin to fight, and nothing chasses after them neither. They just grow tall and eat,a lot..lol.. they can get to be such great pets so ya gotta be carful. They follow ya around like a bunch of lil pups.But when the time came, them were the tenderest,juiciest. finest grained meat birds we ever ate by far. btw... the judge at the fair was impressed and gave Brandon the blue ribbon.

 

[hooberbloo]

It does seem to help with aggressive tendencies, but crowing in my rooster remained the same