Aloha Brada Puhi!
I have been thinking quite a lot about roosters crows--I too live in a rather population dense area with expensive homes nearby and don't want to be a bad neighbor.
I think that you may be on to something with selecting for late crowers. I have actually thought about selecting for late crowers myself in my next batch of boys and testing my theory (outlined below)
I know that crowing is somewhat genetic-- the length of the crow, the frequency of the crow, the age at which the boys start crowing and even the quality. I say this because breeds tend to have similar traits within the breed for the crow and other vocalizations. There are even long-crowers that will hold a crow for a really long time http://feathersite.com/Poultry/CGK/Long/BRKLongCrow.html Now why anyone would selectively breed for a rooster who can out-crow everyone else is beyond me
At one end of the spectrum, I have a friend that has several varieties of Brahmas and she reports that they only crow rarely and its usually in the morning when she feeds. This breed is very slow to mature and the boys don't start crowing until they are older--maybe 5-8 months or even later. The males also will get really large--10+ pound. I have 2 Brahma ladies and they are about 8 pounds each.
On the other end of the crow bell curve, I friends that have had bantams have reported that they will start to crow at a really early age--like 3-4 weeks, and they are obviously small, being bantams.
For myself, I have raised several breeds and have found that in general the slower growers are more submissive and crow later than the fast growers. When I have looked at sizes of the roosters when they grow out, generally speaking, the ones that mature more slowly and crow later are the ones that end up weighing more when they plateau out at 5-6 months. So I am not thinking of culling early crowers becasue they crow early, but becasue I suspect that they will be smaller roosters as adults. I am seeing this in my Welsummers, Cream Legbars and with a mixed breed project (mainly BrahmaxFaverolles) I was working on.
I am speculating that the early production of testosterone that leads to earlier maturation and earlier crowing will also lead to a smaller size in the rooster. I have no hard data (measuring of testosterone levels) but I am personally starting to see a correlation between crowing/maturation/size. I am also extrapolating from mammals. It is well known that in dogs, cats and humans that the early production of sex hormones will close the growth plates in the bones resulting in a smaller stature--and conversely you can delay the process with the bones plates by early spaying or neutering of your pet (or back in human history when they castrated males to create castrati or eunich slaves); the mammals who are castrated before puberty will become larger than they would normally have become as their normal development was altered.
I need more data points to draw firm conclusions, but for this year I am planning on paying close attention to the size of the cockerel at maturity and at what age they started to crow. Not going to cull anyone becasue they are maturing slowly, that's for sure. I want bigger boys--or at least boys that meet the standard! I do have 2 that meet the standard and they were later crowers. I've got 13 roosters right now and really need to make some hard decisions really soon. I told myself I wouldn't set any eggs until most of those boys are gone, so I'd better make some decisions soon!
It would be great if you could add in your observations about size and the age of onset of crowing and any thoughts you might have on the subject. Mahalo!
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