How to caponize a rooster Warning Graphic pics

[wildgeesego]

I have been successfully caponizing my cockerels this summer and I am on my fourth batch. I usually do 5 to 10 at a time. I started out practicing on dead birds. I think this is essential for a beginner. I have gotten much better at the operation. I purchased four different kits, one from NASCO and three antique kits on ebay. I cant recommend the NASCO kit. The spreader doesn't work well and the spoon tongs are clumsy to work with and potentially deadly on the birds.

I have taken tools from all the different kits and made a hybrid kit. The best tool for removing the testes is the loop wire tool. It is a tube with a stainless steel hoop on the end. Picture taking a very thin wire and passing both ends into the same side of a tube until the ends come out the other side, but retain a small hoop on the business end. During the operation you loop this over the testical and pull the ends of the wire snug and you lift the looped testicle up and out of the body cavity. This prevents you from grabbing the artery, which is easy to do with the NASCO tongs, and deadly to the bird, which will bleed out in a minute if you hit this artery.

It is very important that the birds are taken off feed for 24 hours before so the intestines are empty and you can easily see the organs. I also like to use a head lamp and a sunny day with the sun shining into the cut from over my shoulder. The last batch I did out of five birds not one squawked during the operation. They made a lot of racket when I first picked them up but during the operation showed no pain. The first birds I worked on did show pain and I refined my technique on more dead birds after that.

I have some capons that were caponized back in May and they are growing nicely. They are very large but the comb and wattles did not develop, the birds don't crow and don't fight or chase pullets. They live in the pullet coop and are very beautiful with fine long hackles, saddles and tail sickles. The first two batches were crosses of marans and barred rocks. The next batch was salmon faverolles and the last batches were barnevelders. I am also going to do some sussex and marans cockerels. I have had two slips in the first two batches and I fault the tongs and clumsy NASCO spreader for those mistakes. Slips develop as roosters and mine go to the freezer as soon asI can identify them as slips.

My birds did not get wind puffs. They went into a pasture pen and started eating right away after the operation like nothing happened. On the first batches I used isopropyl alcohol to sterilize the point of incision and all my tools. The problem with using isopropyl is that is if a bird dies by accident you can't eat him because the alcohol will spoil the flavor of the meat. Now I use whiskey to sterilize, just in case one dies I can still eat him. But I haven't lost any since switching to the hoop tool and I can do it much faster, with hardly any blood.

Make sure you are familiar with the anatomy before cutting a live bird. Your first cut is going to cut the skin (that you have pulled / stretched from front toward tail so that when you are done the skin incision does not line up with the flesh incision between the ribs. Make sure you go between the last two ribs, if you do you will see the testical. The first cut is also going to cut the thin muscle tissue between the ribs. Then put the spreader on and arrange it so it is towards the birds back and out of your way. The thin membrane covering the body cavity is extremely thin and is easily ruptured with the fine hook tool. Once you tear this thin membrane you will see intestines and the light colored testical.

I am planning to grow these up for Thanksgiving and Christmas. If they grow well and sell for a good price I may do more next year with some of the larger breeds that are supposed to make exceptional capons.

 

[Holly31]

Wildgeese -
Thanks for adding your experience to the thread. I would love to see a resurgence of capons available. I was at Trader Joe's today and didn't see a one, just the Cornish X Dolly Parton - Anna Nicole Smith birds.

I am curious if anyone has done a bird after it starts to crow. I have one bird that started to crow, thus, telling me I mistook him for a pullet, and then I caponized him. However, I was working with clumsy tools at the time and he may be a slip. How will I be able to tell if he's a slip or just got into the habit of crowing and doesn't want to stop?

I am planning on doing 7 cocks tomorrow. I have a hybrid kit also, using a 4 inch Weitlaner retractor, a jewelry beading forcep (tweezers), a scalpel, and some 3-0 chromic catgut to suture. Nasco's kit is a joke and a half, there isn't one thing out of that kit I can use except the box to hold my new stuff.

I have images to post but never can seem to figure it out - if someone can give me the short cut I will be happy to describe the tools.

And thanks for "how" to use the loop - I have seen it but never used it because didn't know how it worked!

 

[vegaschick]

Holly - Q: How do I post pictures on the forum?
A: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=504


Hope that helps. Most of my boys are crowing now

so I want to know if caponizing will stop the crowing too. If your doing this in the later part of the day (after 3), pm me, maybe I could come and watch.

 

[they'reHISchickens]

For those folks worrying about pain, it is normal procedure in cattle with twisted stomachs ( fatal) to be cut in the side with only a small amount of anesthetic injected into the skin at the incision point. The vet puts his entire arm into this 6 inch incision and the 1500 lb. cow just stands there.
We have also had one that the vet tightened a rope around its barrel and she went down so we could roll her over to do the surgery near her bellybutton. She laid there with her nose on my DD's lap during the 1/2 hour surgery, again with only injection at the skin although the vet was reaching into the abdomen.
There are many vet procedures that are not analygous to human surgeries. Most animals are also a lot tougher physically than the average human.
My parents had a caponizing kit long long ago. Wish they were here to ask how they did it!
Wouldn't it be great to offer demos of this at area Chickenstocks?

 

[Holly31]

OK, I'm thinking this photo thing may work.
On the left is the Weitlander retractor. It is about 4 1/4 inches long, has 2 teeth and 3 teeth, and they are blunt, not sharp. When the handles are far apart the teeth come together, you insert into the bird (they're a bit bulky) close slowly and the ratchet locks so the thing won't slip.
On the right is a jewelry bead holding tweezer (forceps). Note the little flat discs have a concave inner side to help hold the testicle. They are just enough seperated to allow you to open them about 1-2 mm and then latch onto the testicle, and it is just about the perfect size to hold the organ for removal without having to put tension on it.
I've found these two tools invaluable, and both were less than $10 each.

I would like to add that I plan on making some sort of non-slip surface to the discs as the little fragile things tend to come apart and I think a little foam or rubber might be just the thing to make it work better. Hard to clean, tho - perhaps something disposable? Ideas?

 

[Kassaundra]

I would like to thank everyone who posted to this thread, I read it from beginning to end tonight. I am very new to chickens and have been puzzling over the crowing problem if I raise them for meat. (as I live in town) I had never heard of caponizing before tonight. I do not need to do this yet as my first order was for all females (b/c I had no solution to the crowing) but the info is going to be invaluable to me later.

As to any suggestions for the foam on the jewelery tweezers, most make up sponges now are made of anti microbial foam, that w/ a little glue that will peel off the metal after each use (you would have to experiment w/ the glue to find one that would hold for the procedure then peel off after) and one make up sponge would go a long way in the little pieces you would need.

Okay I hope this isn't considered off thread, if it is I'm sorry. After reading this thread I started doing additional online research and found several sites that alluded to "chemical caponization" w/ estrogen. But no site gave any details at all, does anyone know anything about this? If this is off subject just let me know and I'll start a new one. Thanks

 

[Holly31]

HI Kassaundra, Welcome to the "PETA hates this thread" thread.

As you were, we needed a solution to all those crowing boys. Caponzing has been around a while, but once the cornish cross came along and all birds were butchered before they even thought about crowing, this went out of fashion, at least in the USA.

A familiy friend of ours raised chickens in the 50s, mostly for eggs to supply the Los Angeles Unified School District, much smaller in the 50s, BTW. Sometimes they'd get boys, and they did this "chemical/estrogen" caponization. They had a small device like a microchip gun and would shoot a pellet of estrogen into the neck at the base of the head. Yes, it worked, and it was shortly banned by the USDA in the 60s because the work on Birth Control Pills told them what estrogen will do, and so this method is long gone from our hands, and probably rightly so.

There is nothing SAFE for meat birds out there except the surgical caponization. Rats, I agree. The pellet thing would work for roos that want to be quiet nice pets, but there is about 0 demand for that. I have found that my capons, so far, won't crow if you get them young enough. But I did a couple that were supposed to be pullets closer to 12 weeks after they began to crow (hence, not pullets), and the crowing diminished and didn't develop, but the dudes still think they are supposed to make a pathetic noise now and then.

The other problem I've had is a SLIP. The little tiny organ is encased in a thin membrane, which promptly explodes the moment you try to nab it, therefore you often (or at least I often) have to take the organ out in pieces, like trying to get a cooked piece of pale yellow rice while it's embedded in red Jello in the dark with a pair of eyebrow tweezers. The SLIP will still act like a rooster, perhaps not quite so perfect of a rooster, but more than a capon, and therefore, you have to go back in and now you're trying to get out a cooked pale yellow pea that has no shell on it, in a big blob of red Jello.

Far from foolproof, we all recommend you practice on a dead bird first. If you practice on hens or pullets, the organ will only be on the left, and it will be round, umm, like a pearl, or, like the egg it is about to become. Finding the actual ovary is a little harder than the actual egg (or testicle) but you will understand the anatomy.

I LOVE your idea for the makeup sponges - I will try that before my next victims are laid before me. They are slippery little devils all covered in red Jello, and dthe spongy susbtance will shorten the time needed to actually get the procedure over and done with, currently taking me 20-30 minutes because I'm slow and I suture the incision, and open both sides of the bird on most occasions.


Glad to see more fans on the board - keep us posted. Males are much cheaper than females when it comes to meat. Save your girls for eggs. Do'nt be surprised if you get a male in your all female bunch - !

 

[Kassaundra]

Holly 31,
Has anyone thought of or tried a small suction device, something small and simple like the baby nose bulb, but don't know if that would provide enough suction. Maybe some small electronics cleaning thing, or small attatchment to a shop vac. (that last one may be to noisy for a relaxed bird, just brainstorming out loud.

 

[Holly31]

Those are great ideas - perhaps a 12 cc syringe with a 2-3 mm hub would do it! I think I'll look into that! So glad you joined and shared - that might be a fantastic solution! Wonder why no one thought of that before?!? I'll see what I can find that would be suitable. Worth a try, for sure!

 

[Tiffrz-N-Kidz]

I hope you discover a good way to slurp those things out. I would like to raise more males but I have neighbors to consider.