Capons

[UrbanBirds]

I'm with you! I would love to learn, but the thought of experimenting on a live bird with no one to help me gives me the willies. I don't want to just muddle through without someone to tell me what I am doing wrong. Also, the birds that I can practice on have been the ones I was butchering, and they have huge testes. I want to caponize them young, and it is a lot different working on a 6-pound bird than a 1-pound bird.

I don't mean to butt in, but I just wanted to offer the advice to only do this on young small birds. I don't know anyone that can caponize/castrate a full grown roo. There's just too much of an advanced blood supply then, and they tend to bleed to death very easily.

 

[bowhunter862]

May I ask why caponize? I'm completely ignorant on this topic. Is it to limit aggression, growing bigger or what?

 

[brahmabreeder]

May I ask why caponize? I'm completely ignorant on this topic. Is it to limit aggression, growing bigger or what?

Good point. Once they are older it is much more ineffective too.

 

[brahmabreeder]

May I ask why caponize? I'm completely ignorant on this topic. Is it to limit aggression, growing bigger or what?

People use to do this because it was suppose to make the roosters larger for butchering. Plus the males aren't as aggressive and more hen like in their behavior.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Do what I did. Practice on a dead bird. You might want to do it quickly after they die. Otherwise they get all stiff.

I think it would be a good idea to practice on a bird similar in age to the ones you plan to caponize, so the size of the anatomy is similar, and to make sure your instruments are going to work with a live bird to remove the testicles.

 

[HogmanGoat]

Caponizing a rooster is done for the same reasons you would turn a bull into a steer. The meat will be tender and fattier instead of tough and stringy.

 

[Elke Beck]

Caponizing a rooster is done for the same reasons you would turn a bull into a steer. The meat will be tender and fattier instead of tough and stringy.

And it eliminates a lot of the aggressive, territorial or tetchy behaviors that intact males may be prone to.

The group of Red Rangers I raised this year had 10 cockerels and 3 pullets, and I thought I might be arrested for illegal cock fighting once they got to about 8 weeks. The cockerels sparred constantly, and kept picking on the pullets.

And they crowed. At 5:30 in the morning. And I am not a morning person. It was only because I kept myself under an iron fist of control that there were not impromptu chicken murders early in the morning.

If I had caponized them, then most of these annoying behaviors would either have not happened or would have happened a lot less.

 

[UrbanBirds]

That's interesting. My freedom rangers are 10 to 11 weeks old and so far only one crows and it's a pretty wimpy crow at that. They have been sparring since they were 3 weeks old though.

 

[Elke Beck]

That's interesting. My freedom rangers are 10 to 11 weeks old and so far only one crows and it's a pretty wimpy crow at that. They have been sparring since they were 3 weeks old though.

Lucky! I started doing the cockerels at 8 weeks and had all of them in the freezer by 11 weeks because I was afraid the neighbors were going to start complaining. I was putting them into the layer coop because they would not crow around the mean hens.

 

[Shellz]

I would love to know how to do this procedure. It would be a great benefit, as I don't have the means to create separate housing for all my cockerels. They're going to get nasty soon before I can get them to butchering age.

Any Canadians doing this? Where to get the proper tools?