GRAPHIC PICS of my day learning to caponize

[Maggiesdad]

Elsiebb, if they were off food for 24h and off water for 12h, when you open them the intestines will lay toward the bird's keel because they are shrunken. This gives a good view of the backbone. If the bird has been snacking on chips and poo the intestines are loaded, then it's really hard to see anything in there but gray loopy stuff.

 

[Kassaundra]

LOL I may have used the wrong term. I read that some of them will mother chicks, teach them to scratch and other chicken behaviors.

That is the term used, brood, that they will brood the chicks. I have never had it happen in mine, but they haven't really had an opportunity either.

 

[Kassaundra]

Ooo, a new word! What is pollardized? Thanks, Sylvia

Sterilizing a female

 

[naillikwj82]

To Elsiebb, and very early interested:

The very first rule is to learn small chicken anatomy, the other steps will only matter once you know chickens! So just like 8th grade biology, dispatch two small chickens and slowly dissect them. The first one by splitting open the breast, and working through the layers to the spine. The second one by cutting through the left side ribs (as the left side testes is more prominent to see) to perform the procedure. Second rule, practice stabbing and cutting into a store purchased chicken thigh to learn your tools function and how much effort is required to do so. Elsiebb look for pm
jeff

 

[BCMaraniac]

I am just about to start on my oldest boys I've ever done. They are 12 weeks. I wanted to do them much earlier but got a really bad respiratory bug and had a persistent hacking cough for the past 6 ish weeks. Toes are crossed for my 3 boys. (have to keep the fingers uncrossed for obvious reasons

)

How did your caponizing go with your 12 weekers? I caponized 6 today that were 10 weeks 4 Marans and 2 Bresse. I read somewhere....who knows where... that the French caponize the Bresse at 10 weeks. That was not my original intent, but that is how it worked out. I like caponizing the youngsters waaaay better. The Bresse birds weighed nearly 3 pounds, but the Marans were smaller. I've got another batch that are 6 weeks old, so I'm putting them up Wednesday evening for caponizing Friday.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Barred birds almost always have totally dark or bi-colored dark testes

The Marans that I caponized today were not Cuckoos, but they had one yellow testicle and one black one.....yellow one on right side and black one on left......

 

[Kassaundra]

How did your caponizing go with your 12 weekers? I caponized 6 today that were 10 weeks 4 Marans and 2 Bresse. I read somewhere....who knows where... that the French caponize the Bresse at 10 weeks. That was not my original intent, but that is how it worked out. I like caponizing the youngsters waaaay better. The Bresse birds weighed nearly 3 pounds, but the Marans were smaller. I've got another batch that are 6 weeks old, so I'm putting them up Wednesday evening for caponizing Friday.

It went well, I actually thought it was a bit easier, testes still on the small side, but the opening can be done w/ the larger retractors and an tad more room.

 

[Sylviaanne]

Yes when my mentor started she only had the American instructions. Since then she has got the Chinese caponizing tools and some instruction, what can be gleaned from the CD w/o knowing Chinese language. Their way is going in on the right side and removing both, the lower one first then the upper one. They also do not restrain both legs only the upper leg is restrained the other is allowed to be pulled up under the torso of the bird, this does aid in better viewing.

The American way of the lt side I believe is to make sure you have a boy, since the females only ovary is on the lt side.

On the birds that I could see the lower teste I could also clearly see those large veins between me and it, and the dark small hole and the barely enough room w/ the tools, and when the tools were in the hole obstructed views of those large vessels, had a hard time justifying the added risk, when the second cut is so easy.

Good luck w/ your caponizing tomorrow.

From what I have read, I think a reason for cutting on the left side of the males is because the left testes is bigger than the one on the right and if you wanted to take both through the same cut, it would be easier to remove the smaller testes through the left cut than pulling the bigger testes through a smaller right cut for a smaller testes on the right side. Just throwing this out there. Let's see where it goes.

 

[Sylviaanne]

Well, I finished the caponization yesterday, and ended up removing 14 seemingly intact testicles from 7 birds, which is definitely my best effort to date The 6 week old birds were a bit of a challenge because of the smaller opening from my reluctance to spread those small ribs too much. I didn't try to get both testicles from one side, but I did locate them for future attempts.

The new elevators I made helped a lot. They seemed to make loosening the testicles easier.

I am hopeful that the learning curve will continue to improve procedure times as well as accessing the testicles from both sides. I guess I will find out this coming weekend, since I have 7 more to do.

Could you post a picture of your elevators? How do you use them?

 

[Sylviaanne]

Here are some pics of the most recent big boys testes that my mentor has worked on over the past couple of weeks



All were over 6 months, Boss is very much "head roo" and very full of testosterone



I believe she only had to use to caudery tool once and not for the actual teste, but a vascular area at the membrane covering the abdominal cavity.


All these boys are alive well, recovering and much less noisy and aggressive w/ each other, even Boss who required time out just after the procedure is now able to be in w/ the other boys w/o showing aggression to them.

I have a question: When you put the loops around the testes and tighten it to lift it out, it sounds like it is easy in most young cockerels, why doesn't the wire cut everything that the testes is attached to? Or does it? Sylvia