GRAPHIC PICS of my day learning to caponize

[Poco Pollo]

How is the coming clinic going? Getting more people to sign up?

Out Internet connection is slow, and for a few days I haven't been able to log in. I don't have any news to share regarding the next clinic. School breaks are the only available time. We'll have to see what life brings. I hope to place an order for tools at the end of September.

 

[Kassaundra]

Oh, speaking of chicken testes...When I butchered my extra roosters a few weeks ago, the first two I did had three. When I first started, I thought, "If there had been two of these white-ish things, I would think they were the testes, but IDK what they have three of."

The rest had two, and your pictures confirm that I was right.
Why did a couple of them have three???

It is not all that uncommon to have an extra teste or a misshapen or one extra large and one normal.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Why would you poulardize a chicken?

When a pullet is castrated, she doesn't focus her energy on producing eggs, so she will plump up and get bigger. I am raising all of my meat from egg to table, so I need to do something with all of the pullets I hatch, and this will allow them to get older before butchering I have hatched approximately 90 chicks this year, so I want to process nearly all of them for the table.

The flesh of the poulard is also supposed to be even more tender and succulent than the capon. The carcass is smaller, but has a fuller breast relative to its size.

 

[TeaChick]

It is not all that uncommon to have an extra teste or a misshapen or one extra large and one normal.

Oh, thank you. The first one I butchered (I realized after I had done a few) had three huge testes. If I had realized that, I would have taken pictures; although, I can't think of why right now except that it seems unusual, but it's not, so I guess I'm glad I didn't waste my time.
Sorry.

Thank you. =)

 

[LindaB220]

If the gawd-awful, inhumane, treatment of chickens, by Tyson Foods and others, is legal, how would this NOT be legal?
I recently injured myself, doing bumblefoot surgery, on one of my New Hampshire Red hens. I had to go to my physician, for treatment, and was a bit hesitant, but needed to tell him, that the scalpel, which had JUST been in her foot, to debrede it, got dropped, and went through my shoe, into the top of my foot, thereby infecting me, with the Staph, that was in her foot. Unexpectedly, my doc said that similar injuries, are common, around here, because folks simply cannot afford to take a $3-$10 chicken, to one of the few Veterinarians, able to work on them, and pay hundreds of dollars. It would then be more likely for the bird to be slaughtered.
So, same concept here. While the bird does feel the pain, it is far more humane, than the alternative. Besides, humans get battlefield surgery, nearly every day, in war, under similar circumstances (no anesthesia, severe pain) and survive, because it is performed by trained people, who simply lack a degree in Veterinary Medicine.

I'm sorry, but I don't have any of my 35 birds that I would be willing to spend over $100 for a vet visit. If I can't cure it then it's culling time.

 

[Pinkaboo]

When a pullet is castrated, she doesn't focus her energy on producing eggs, so she will plump up and get bigger.  I am raising all of my meat from egg to table, so I need to do something with all of the pullets I hatch, and this will allow them to get older before butchering  I have hatched approximately 90 chicks this year, so I want to process nearly all of them for the table.

The flesh of the poulard is also supposed to be even more tender and succulent than the capon.  The carcass is smaller, but has a fuller breast relative to its size.

Oh I see I couldn't understand why you'd need to castrate a hen, you'd just not hatch the eggs
Makes more sense now, do commercial meat places do this??

 

[LindaB220]

Caponized 4 Bresse and 4 Marans today.......

I had a 16 week old Marans pullet that I was planning to sacrifice to learn the anatomy for poulardizing, but decided to give poulardizing a try since she was older than any of my attempts last year, but was not showing sexual development. Her ovary was easily identified right where you would expect the left testicle to be in a cockerel, but is larger and white. I could easily identify her oviduct laying up against the back with a large blood vessel underneath it. It was easy to loosen the oviduct, so I removed about an inch of it, the section closest to the ovary along with a piece of the lower pole of the ovary. With the anatomy identifiable, it was definitely easier than caponizing.

I think the key to the poulardizing is going to be finding the age at which the pullet is old enough to visualize the oviduct, but the ovary is not yet maturing. I think that age is going to vary according to the specific breeds and their age at POL. The age recommended in the literature is 12-14 weeks, but that was too early for me last year with the Marans crosses. The Bresse pullets are usually laying by 20 weeks, so I anticipate needing to poulardize them at a younger age than 16 weeks.

I have more Marans pullets the same age as the one today, so I may try to poulardize them this week.

It's going to be interesting to see if this pullet starts getting her " boy feathers" in the next few weeks.

Oh yeah, good for you. So we need to maybe do it 3 or 4 wks before they start laying? Or just a case by case basis. Keep us in the loop on info on this.

 

[Regin]

Sorry, I haven't been keeping up very well lately. Been busy with work and building coops. Do you have another clinic coming up? any tentative scheduling yet? Do you know of clinics in other areas (like the carolina's) ?

 

[BCMaraniac]

Oh yeah, good for you. So we need to maybe do it 3 or 4 wks before they start laying? Or just a case by case basis. Keep us in the loop on info on this.

Thanks. I really don't know exactly, Linda. This is the first one that I knew for certain that I had removed the oviduct. I have 3 more Marans pullets that I am doing tomorrow along with caponizing another little roo. I have some Bresse pullets that are about 4 weeks younger than these, so I think I am going to try a couple of them within the next week to get an idea about the best time for them as well. That would put them about 6 weeks before POL. I suspect that may be the best time......but it's just a guess.

The Marans generally are older than the Bresse at POL, so I figure they will be poulardized at an older age than the Bresse.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Oh I see I couldn't understand why you'd need to castrate a hen, you'd just not hatch the eggs
Makes more sense now, do commercial meat places do this??

Poulardizing is done even less than caponizing, so I don't think there are any done commercially. The Chinese castrate pullets at 4 weeks of age, but the American literature describes doing it at an older age so the ovary doesn't have to be removed since it can bleed a lot.