GRAPHIC PICS of my day learning to caponize

[RogerShoaf]

Batting 600 is not a failure anymore than if you lost those birds to hawks.

 

[Maggiesdad]

Batting 600 is not a failure anymore than if you lost those birds to hawks.

True dat - you can get on any major league team batting .600!

The ones you lost were neither slow, nor painful... don't beat your self up about it. Congrats for having success going in cold! Your future endeavors will roll much easier, now that you know what to expect.

 

[Kassaundra]

I want to thank all of you for the wealth of information, step-by-step instructions, and great pictures on caponizing cockerels. I must say that I spent much of the 2 months it took me to gather all of the supplies reading and rereading this forum. Yesterday day I gathered my courage and tried my hand at caponizing 10 Arucana cockerels.

It was a horrid failure! The 1st on bled to death when I cut that large artery. Blood just started pumping into the cavity and I knew he was a goner. I located the artery on the 2nd before I tried to remove the teste, but ended up cutting it anyways so that one expired too. The 3rd and 5th ones lived, but the 5th & 6th ones did not. I had to stop there as I couldn't take killing any more of them. I put the 2 that lived in isolation boxes with food and water, cleaned up, went to bed depressed and beating myself up for putting those chicks through such a slow and painful death.

Well this morning I got up to checked on them I found them both moving around eating and loudly complaining about me to each other. I also found that my brother had dressed out the 4 cockerels that didn't make it and made a nice pot of chicken soup for lunch. He gave me a pep talk and helped me finish the final 4 chicks - EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE LIVED!!

So final count: of the 10 chicks I started with - I now have 6 full capons (I was able to get both intact testes out of all of them), 3 of which I was able to get both testes from 1 side so they didn't have to endure a second incision! 6 little capons that will hopefully recover and live peacefully for the rest of their days.

The learning curve is there for sure, most have lost thier first ones. It is easy to psych yourself out when the first one goes south. What an awesome brother. The buddy system works best for learning this w/o psyching yourself. Also the body type you started w/ is harder. Those shorter bodies seemed to be harder when Poco and I tried them.

Congrats on the success, and sticking w/ it.

 

[BCMaraniac]

I want to thank all of you for the wealth of information, step-by-step instructions, and great pictures on caponizing cockerels. I must say that I spent much of the 2 months it took me to gather all of the supplies reading and rereading this forum. Yesterday day I gathered my courage and tried my hand at caponizing 10 Arucana cockerels.

It was a horrid failure! The 1st on bled to death when I cut that large artery. Blood just started pumping into the cavity and I knew he was a goner. I located the artery on the 2nd before I tried to remove the teste, but ended up cutting it anyways so that one expired too. The 3rd and 5th ones lived, but the 5th & 6th ones did not. I had to stop there as I couldn't take killing any more of them. I put the 2 that lived in isolation boxes with food and water, cleaned up, went to bed depressed and beating myself up for putting those chicks through such a slow and painful death.

Well this morning I got up to checked on them I found them both moving around eating and loudly complaining about me to each other. I also found that my brother had dressed out the 4 cockerels that didn't make it and made a nice pot of chicken soup for lunch. He gave me a pep talk and helped me finish the final 4 chicks - EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE LIVED!!

So final count: of the 10 chicks I started with - I now have 6 full capons (I was able to get both intact testes out of all of them), 3 of which I was able to get both testes from 1 side so they didn't have to endure a second incision! 6 little capons that will hopefully recover and live peacefully for the rest of their days.

It was not a failure! I lost my first one, but the next ones were slips, so I wasn't successful either. I look at it this way. The learning curve is steep, and the birds were destined for the table....and a 15-20 second bleedout is not a cruel death if you aren't successful.

Congratulations on your successes and hats off to your brother! Keep up the good work!

 

[chrissyr]

I want to thank all of you for the wealth of information, step-by-step instructions, and great pictures on caponizing cockerels. I must say that I spent much of the 2 months it took me to gather all of the supplies reading and rereading this forum. Yesterday day I gathered my courage and tried my hand at caponizing 10 Arucana cockerels.

It was a horrid failure! The 1st on bled to death when I cut that large artery. Blood just started pumping into the cavity and I knew he was a goner. I located the artery on the 2nd before I tried to remove the teste, but ended up cutting it anyways so that one expired too. The 3rd and 5th ones lived, but the 5th & 6th ones did not. I had to stop there as I couldn't take killing any more of them. I put the 2 that lived in isolation boxes with food and water, cleaned up, went to bed depressed and beating myself up for putting those chicks through such a slow and painful death.

Well this morning I got up to checked on them I found them both moving around eating and loudly complaining about me to each other. I also found that my brother had dressed out the 4 cockerels that didn't make it and made a nice pot of chicken soup for lunch. He gave me a pep talk and helped me finish the final 4 chicks - EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE LIVED!!

So final count: of the 10 chicks I started with - I now have 6 full capons (I was able to get both intact testes out of all of them), 3 of which I was able to get both testes from 1 side so they didn't have to endure a second incision! 6 little capons that will hopefully recover and live peacefully for the rest of their days.

You learned what you were doing wrong and finished successfully.
Is say a job well done and nothing went to waste .
And it seems you learned quickly. Congrats! I haven't tried it yet, but I think yours is the best case scenario for learning

 

[Free2BMe2798]

Thanks so much for all of your kind words of encouragement! I check on them and found chirping chicks standing next to empty feed & water cups.

Wheeeeewwww this has been a really interesting experience.

I wanted to caponize them because my 1st one to hatch with huge beautiful even double tufts had an equally large tail! I only did one that was tailess. Several more hatched with tails and all had big tufts (both dt & st) so I wanted to keep them but not let them breed. I also had 4 tailed pullets that hatched but that wasn't such a big deal. They are going into the layer pen as I have a couple of egg customers that really love the blue eggs.

Thanks again you guys!

 

[LindaB220]

Thanks so much for all of your kind words of encouragement! I check on them and found chirping chicks standing next to empty feed & water cups.

Wheeeeewwww this has been a really interesting experience.

I wanted to caponize them because my 1st one to hatch with huge beautiful even double tufts had an equally large tail! I only did one that was tailess. Several more hatched with tails and all had big tufts (both dt & st) so I wanted to keep them but not let them breed. I also had 4 tailed pullets that hatched but that wasn't such a big deal. They are going into the layer pen as I have a couple of egg customers that really love the blue eggs.

Thanks again you guys!

Great work!! Be sure and keep in touch with follow ups on these birds.

 

[FishaRneKed]

 

[Kassaundra]

Great job on the video, really show how calm the birds are during the process.

 

[LindaB220]

Thanks so much for posting this. Just think how easy with the right tools. Really looking forward to trying it.