GRAPHIC PICS of my day learning to caponize

Ok, am punting after rereading 99-127. What is current best practice for withholding water and food. I am somewhat concerned as it is late in the season to do this - and probably hitting 100 outside already. Separated my hens and roos today. Have 13 boys from my first hatch awaiting the operation.

I withhold food about 36 hours and water for 12. I have done them in the hot summer like this, and just try and keep them in total shade and give each one water immediately that one is finished. Depending on how many you are doing I have brought them in the house to wait out their time (the day of the procedure, not for the whole fast)
 
It is nothing special, just like other puffed up chickens... (He was murdered by my dog an hour ago, while I was posting the question, so too late for the photos
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Sorry about that. I have had a few w/ persistant wind puffs for a couple of weeks afterwards, but nothing like you are describing for immediately blowing back up.
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I withhold food about 36 hours and water for 12. ... Depending on how many you are doing I have brought them in the house to wait out their time (the day of the procedure, not for the whole fast)
Thank you. Will try to start building a containment cage tonight. That will be easier than trying to cut the automatic water system off my grow out cage. But the real advantage will be that it can be brought inside for at least part of the water fast. Will do a quick clean of their grow out cage when I pull the food - switch pens and give them a few more hours to evacuate. The poop factor in the house should be fairly minimal (and can always put litter in the poop tray under the cage (wire floor - they will not have access to it).
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Of course I also have an alternator motive on the containment cage - I want a prototype of a Bresse finishing cage... I will not do all my meat birds that way - but would love to do a few just for "scientific" comparison purposes.
 
Thank you. Will try to start building a containment cage tonight. That will be easier than trying to cut the automatic water system off my grow out cage. But the real advantage will be that it can be brought inside for at least part of the water fast. Will do a quick clean of their grow out cage when I pull the food - switch pens and give them a few more hours to evacuate. The poop factor in the house should be fairly minimal (and can always put litter in the poop tray under the cage (wire floor - they will not have access to it).
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Of course I also have an alternator motive on the containment cage - I want a prototype of a Bresse finishing cage... I will not do all my meat birds that way - but would love to do a few just for "scientific" comparison purposes.

Neat idea . Keep us in the loop on the finishing cage and how it worked as a finisher.
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found this at https://vegebon.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/

Spruce include up to three floors, with a minimum separation of 10 cm between two floors. You can see photos here . Animal density of 17 females or 14 males per m 2 or 588 to 714 cm 2 per bird. Recall that 624 cm 2 is the surface of a sheet of A4 and a Bresse chicken weighs about 3kg. Probable sign of discomfort poultry "for capons and hens, the trimming of nails is required to set spruce."

iirc that would make 2'x2' a 5 bird cage. I think that is fairly close to a standard us laying pen (I recalled a little off - per wiki US standards are 430 to 560cm per hen, which equals a 1.5x2 cage).

Anyway - will keep that in mind when building the cage. This is going to be a quick wire cage - the spruce is something that is far more generational, and while a fun project. I simply don't have the time to do a proper mortised wooden cage at the moment.

https://translate.googleusercontent...8.html&usg=ALkJrhhlvBnw_qi2pdhS8rp6LIa1b2JS4w

not sure if that more direct link to the translation with pictures will work.
 
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found this at https://vegebon.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/

Spruce include up to three floors, with a minimum separation of 10 cm between two floors. You can see photos here . Animal density of 17 females or 14 males per m 2 or 588 to 714 cm 2 per bird. Recall that 624 cm 2 is the surface of a sheet of A4 and a Bresse chicken weighs about 3kg. Probable sign of discomfort poultry "for capons and hens, the trimming of nails is required to set spruce."

Anyway - will keep that in mind when building the cage. This is going to be a quick wire cage - the spruce is something that is far more generational, and while a fun project. I simply don't have the time to do a proper mortised wooden cage at the moment.

Beautiful pictures. I wonder if the ones that they had laid out were capons. Lots of fat. It could just be the way they are fed.
 
I got a Table Mate adjustable table for Christmas. The surface can be disinfected quickly and easily, and I can adjust the height of the table and the angle as well. It's lightweight and portable, and I can use it sitting down or standing up. Using Kassaundra's ribbon with loops between two fabric-covered hair ties, I can secure any sized bird to the table. I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

Currious, how did the table mate work out for you?

Noted another
On one of the Spanish sites, I saw a music stand used. The specific sort seems to be a rather new model of tripod music stand (I never saw this kind until recently) that has a lot of holes that allow attachment of the bird in whatever location desired. I think the other reason they were using a music stand is that it is adjustable to get light on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Pyle-Pro-PMS1-Heavy-Tripod-Music/dp/B0037GRGGU/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1388704223&sr=8-16&keywords=music+stand

Referring to some posts above, I freaked out the first time I saw it done.

One question - how many hours to withhold feed and how many hours to withhold feed have you folks found to be optimal?

is this considered better?
 
Currious, how did the table mate work out for you?

Noted another

is this considered better?
The Table Mate works well, but I found another table that has the same work surface area with legs that I feel are more stable. The table has a brown plastic top and pipe legs. I bought mine at Wally Mart for around fifteen dollars.
 

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