GRAPHIC PICS of my day learning to caponize

[oldrooster]

Hi! Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread over the years. I feel like something of a voyeur, following your stories. Many times I’ve wanted to chime in with a question or comment, but of course, the remarks and stories I was reading were literally years old.

I’ve only been keeping poultry for a little over a year, and I had read of capons but only in passing. ATM I’m full up on chickens... at least for the duration of winter, so no hatching or practice for me.

I will be butchering some young Tom turkeys if we get any comfortable enough days, though. (As in sufficiently above freezing to enable me to use my fingers continuously.) I’m wondering whether it would be helpful at all to practice caponizing on them, once dead. (From what I’ve read, turkeys are easy to neuter, but there is little advantage since they’re typically slaughtered at or before they become sexually mature.) Has anyone tried this?

Why not? how further dead can they get? no pain, no movement= easy time to practice. I am thinking if you want to attempt it it makes sense to do it on a dead one first. medical students use cadavors right?

 

[CindyinSD]

Hopefully we’ll get a few good days. The next several aren’t looking too promising.

 

[Mosey2003]

I think I might actually give this a go next year. Really wish there were good tools available though. Also wish there were more pictures, both of live capons at different ages and then cooked ones.

 

[CindyinSD]

I got an antique set on eBay that looks pretty good to me, plus I ordered another new one from there that I haven’t yet received. From some of the posts I hadn’t gotten to at the time I ordered it, I think it will be the rooster sized one but who knows? I may want a larger one if I get good enough at it to feel confident about doing an older bird.

Anyway, keep an eye on eBay. You can find all sorts of things there. You and I can be e-buddies if we’re both still interested by spring. Everyone else seems to have lost interest in the thread here. It’s only natural. They carried it on for a long time, and I expect you run out of things to say about caponizing after a while. If you haven’t done already, reading through the whole thing is very informative.

Have you decided which kinds of birds you’re interested in using for capons?

 

[Mosey2003]

I got an antique set on eBay that looks pretty good to me, plus I ordered another new one from there that I haven’t yet received. From some of the posts I hadn’t gotten to at the time I ordered it, I think it will be the rooster sized one but who knows? I may want a larger one if I get good enough at it to feel confident about doing an older bird.

Anyway, keep an eye on eBay. You can find all sorts of things there. You and I can be e-buddies if we’re both still interested by spring. Everyone else seems to have lost interest in the thread here. It’s only natural. They carried it on for a long time, and I expect you run out of things to say about caponizing after a while. If you haven’t done already, reading through the whole thing is very informative.

Have you decided which kinds of birds you’re interested in using for capons?

Hi! I actually did look on eBay yesterday and found the good Chinese kits and ordered two I got the smaller sets. They were $13-some each and like $3 shipping, I figured at that price, on a slow boat from China, I might as well order a spare while I was at it.

I know I read through the whole thing (I think!) a couple years ago, but wasn't ready to pursue back then. I'm in the process of reading through it all again. Really interested to see if anyone had luck doing pullets, too. Hardly anything at all online about poulardizing. I'll definitely be your buddy!

I'm not entirely sure which chicks I'll do this with. I have some breeding plans in mind for the spring. Have pullets with a comb deformity that I want to test breed and see if it's something I can eliminate in one breeding, so if any of those throw cockerels with the deformity, I'd definitely try it on them. Otherwise, I'm kind of thinking about something like the slow broilers or rangers. Looking at the D'Artagnan (fancy food) website and the capons they offer, it looks like they're using Red Rangers, though I could be mistaken. Maybe practice on less valuable chicks and then do those when I'm pretty confident. See how the carcasses differ. Because I'm pretty sure "way back when" they must have been using Rocks or similar, so I assume that's what they're supposed to taste like. I have Heritage Barred Rocks.

 

[S.A.W.]

Some of the supplies. My instructor had a cool low tech "table" a piece of packing styrofoam and large bubble wrap. She said the slight stretching of the bird is ness. to cut the correct location. She put wide bands at the wing and feet and secured them w/ bungee.


The feathers in the area were very easy to pluck and the bird didn't seem to care. She is pulling the skin back so that her inscision of skin and muscle will not line up. She is going between the last two ribs. This pic doesn't show it well but there is a marked depression you cannot miss between the top of the thigh and the bottom rib.


This is the beginning of the skin inscision. She cuts the skin only on the first pass.


This is the completed skin cut


She adjusted the skin opening over the area of the muscle she was cutting. With the exposed muscle it was easier to see the correct place to cut.


retracting the opening to see and breaking the membrane for a view into the cavity. You can see intestine it this shot.


here you can see the tool she used to tear away the membrane (the piece of flesh diagonally from the end of the tool)


The object to the left with the slightly more yellow color is the teste, the uppermost one, the others are intestine


This is the modified straw and wire gripper, she gently twisted the straw to detatch it from the bird, but it just wouldn't easily detatch, so she had a plan B


here she is still trying to twist it.


she had a cauderizing tool, it worked well to seperate the teste from the bird. She bought it online she said it was around $50


here you can see the connective tissue being cauderized


and here it is out


Here is the second teste, she goes in through the same opening. You can see the second membrane that has to be removed before the teste can be clearly seen. She removes it w/ the same modified straw, she said the second one cannot be cauderized, at least through the same opening.


couple of stitches w/ sewing thread, but she uses a suture needle, she said regular sewing needles just were not sharp enough, there was way to much tugging of the skin


all stitched up


She uses alchohol on a cotton ball to swab the area and check for blood vessels before cutting anything at all, and plans her cuts where there are no blood vessels to lessen blood loss. It is like magic these were not very visible if at all before she swabbed with the alchohol.


I took several pics to try and show placement, but very few showed the detail and landmarks that were clearly visible in real life. this was the closest she stated how important the slight stretching of the bird is to locate landmarks easily there is a definate valley between the last rib and the thigh, the muscle cut needs to be between the last two ribs.



Sorry for the amount of pics, I took many more and tried to narrow it down to just the essentials to tell a complete story.

I want to make clear this isn't my information, I was the student. The woman showing me how to do this has an amazing success rate, she has only lost one bird total and that was to a respiratory infection, she has even caponized older birds then is recomended (special circumstances made this ness she doesn't do it regularly)and had no fatalities.

I really appreciate seeing all the pictures and instruction. When I first heard of caponizing, I was wondering how invasive it would be. Never imagined it would be as simple as the pics make it seem. Don't know that I would ever do it, but at least it now seems doable. My worst concern is causing the bird pain. Did the bird appear in much pain?

 

[CindyinSD]

Hi! I actually did look on eBay yesterday and found the good Chinese kits and ordered two I got the smaller sets..

Great! I’m really glad you found it and yes, it sounds like a good idea ordering two. I looked harder at my order and it’s definitely for larger birds, but I’m not having luck finding a small set. Could you help me out? I’m not very familiar with eBay—no idea what I’m doing wrong.

 

[CindyinSD]

From what I’ve read here it sounds like it’s rare for the birds to exhibit much of a pain response though it occasionally happens. Mostly it seems they’re not liking being restrained and flinching a bit at the incision. That makes sense to me. I don’t believe the internal organs have pain receptors. They can’t have any kind of anesthesia because it’s poisonous to them. Some people used ice, but it was decided that on the whole, the ice seemed more distasteful to the bird than the cut.

 

[Kusanar]

From what I’ve read here it sounds like it’s rare for the birds to exhibit much of a pain response though it occasionally happens. Mostly it seems they’re not liking being restrained and flinching a bit at the incision. That makes sense to me. I don’t believe the internal organs have pain receptors. They can’t have any kind of anesthesia because it’s poisonous to them. Some people used ice, but it was decided that on the whole, the ice seemed more distasteful to the bird than the cut.

I've also seen where they don't enjoy having the spot plucked and some people pluck them the day before to lessen the stress on the actual day of surgery.

 

[Mosey2003]

Great! I’m really glad you found it and yes, it sounds like a good idea ordering two. I looked harder at my order and it’s definitely for larger birds, but I’m not having luck finding a small set. Could you help me out? I’m not very familiar with eBay—no idea what I’m doing wrong.

Here's the one I ordered:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-Stainle...275500?hash=item261ef7382c:g:rVgAAOSwqYJc~ki7