How to caponize a rooster Warning Graphic pics

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:

I wish you success with your caponization efforts, don't "chicken out" now! How big were the testicles you removed? In the young cockerels I did at around 10 weeks of age they were still very small, about the size of a small dried bean. They were fragile, I had to be careful when grabbing them with the forceps. The forceps I have are just about the size & width of the testicle, I can grab the entire organ with the ends of this tool. I did have one whose testicle came apart & had to be removed in 2 pieces. If your birds' parts are any bigger then they may be much older.

 

[Holly31]

HI Sunny, welcome to the site.

I have had 3 successful caponizations so far. 3 out of 3. One that expired was a pullet and she wouldln't give me her testicle - I was on the right side and had I gone in on the left FIRST I could have seen a round pearl instead of, well, nothing, and would have stopped before I did any more damage. Hens' right ovaries are vestigal and disappear before they start even laying.

So, a word of advice I have learned - start on the left and make sure you find a bean shaped white thing, not a pearl shaped white thing.

One of my boys developed a puff - I made a .5 mm by 1 mm hole in the skin with a clean fresh sharp scalpel blade and squeezed the air out - he's fine now. No one had crowed since (2-3 weeks), however, when I put their sisters in their cage with them they did peck the new girls down a bit - but not try to mate. They don't seem to be growing at an abnormally quick pace, kind of like the others are.

I HATE the tools in the Nasco kit - they are useless. My tools include, now, after a lot of trial and error, a 4 inch Weitlaner retractor, blunt ends, a number 3 handle and # 15 scalpel blade (also to open air sac), and my grasper of choice is a jewelry tool - pearl tongs, or bead tongs. They are tongs with a flat rounded top, not a pointed sharp tip. To hold them down, I use bungees around legs and shoulders strung to filled gallon bottles with handles. I can easily adjust the bird without hurting it, the retractor makes the work immeasurably easier, the tongs are small and can go in without hitching on the retractor and being rounded they are not like the triangular sharp ones that tear blood vessels. I also stitch them up, using 3-0 chromic catgut swaged on a reverse cutting needle; two for the intercostal muscles and one for the dermis. I got ALL these things on eBay or the local hardware store.

GOOD LIGHTING is essential. I also got a coleman headlamp to help me, but it was not as much help as I thought it would be. The testicles are fragile, and the grasping tool is essential. A good, gentle grip and twist the organ out. I found that making the incision directly forward of the point of the hip betwen the last two ribs. When I was doing this alone, I put a towel over the bird's head so he would be calmer.

I don't have any pictures, but a lady may be giving me half a dozen more cocks about 8 weeks old, and perhaps I can make a video of it and pass on what I have learned.

Good luck out there!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Thanks for the extra info, Holly. I will be on the lookout for better tools, although we're doing all right with the ones I have. I will look at the craft store for those bead tongs, I was wishing I had something like that during the last session. I dropped one boy's bean back into his cavity after it was separated & had to go searching for it. I will also look there for magnifying glasses, they may have them for folks doing fine detailed work with over-40 eyes like mine.

Another local BYC member, DragonEggs, worked with me on the first 4 cockerels, then I got brave & did 4 more on my own, and then again she & I did another 4. We've only lost one, the very first one we tried. That is all the extra cockerel chicks I have to work on at this time, so I won't "need" other tools for a while, until I have more broody hens to hatch out more chicks.

This last time we sewed up the incisions, using just what we had, regular cotton thread & a needle. We only sewed the skin together. How long should I wait before removing the stitches? They aren't puffing up as much as the other ones we had glued, I think I'll stitch from now on. What is that material that you use for stitches that dissolve on their own? What kind of a shelf life does it have?

I used these blades: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1PJ0GA65QEWP7JFDKVSJ Stanley brand utility knife blades for cutting wallpaper, the package says "sharper than a scalpel" and it seems to be true.

The most difficult one to do was a bantam about 12 weeks old, he had the biggest organs I've removed, about the size of a cooked navy bean. I am certain I'm working on cockerels, at 9-10 weeks it's fairly obvious. If I had a bird that I was unsure of the sex, I would rather wait a few more weeks until I was sure. My friend had an older EE cockerel about 14-15 weeks (?) we're not sure of its exact age and it only recently showed definite signs of his sex. I thought he would have really big beans to remove, but to our surprise his parts were as small as the other younger guys. I guess that is why he was so slow to develop.

Now all I have to do is get these cockerels to GROW so we can eat them! I am looking forward to the next processing session to see how they turn out!

 

[emvickrey]

I would like to know exactly the purpose in tortuing the roosters like this.

Personally I would like some aanesthesia before somebody cut into me instead of strapping me down so I can't move while they cut into my body and remove organs. I'm sorry but that is just cruel.

I could understand if the bird had a life or death illness and the operation had to be done quickly to save it's life but to just do it for sterilization?

I know how about we do this to one of you. Yeah, let see how it feels from somebody that can actually tell us how painful it is.

 

[eKo_birdies]

read the previous posts. there you'll find the answer to "why"...........

please educate yourself on the subject before bursting in with inflammatory remarks.

 

[Holly31]

The reason we don't use anesthesia is because we can't get it. No one will sell it to us. Meth freaks have put Sudafed behind the counter, can you imagine what they'd do with isoflourane? But what has to be done has to be done. The alternative is to kill them outright, a waste since they are not much bigger than a pigeon when they begin to crow and are barely worth dressing.

Whenever we eat meat, we have to either hunt it and kill it, or grow it then kill it. Capons look like roosters but rarely fight or crow. There's an awful lot of cruelty in the world, and this is way down on the list of torture, pain, suffering. No one posions them because the crow, they don't rip each other's wattles off from fighting, they don't chase and scare little children, and when the time comes, they are quickly killed and dressed, not thrown live, in vain, into a trash can when hatched. I put a dab of lidocaine or benzocaine on the skin where I must make an incision, it's as much as I can do (see, tattoo shop supplies).

I am as gentle and as humane as I can be in doing something that takes less time than to write this post. Trying to shame those of us who find use for our male chickens is not neighborly, although it is your right to have such an opinion and not caponize your male chicks. What do you do with your cockerals? Once they leave your place, you have no control of the next person they may come into contact with - an underground cock fighter, someone who wants pit bull bait, etc. We prefer solutions to probelms on this board, not acting like immature teen texters.

 

[vegaschick]

Go Holly! Very well said. There's plenty to read and learn about on this forum w/out looking to pick fights. That said, I have four 14 wk old cockerals that I have no use for. Want some more practice? I'd like to try but would love to watch a time or two first. I'm definately a visual learner. PM me if you're at all interested. They are just starting to try crowing, not something I can have in my neighborhood.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I forgot to mention that this time we also tried putting one of my kids' socks over the birds' heads while we were working on them. The sock was small enough to stay put on the bird but still loose enough for comfort. It seemed to calm them to be in the dark like that.

 

[eKo_birdies]

Quote:
lol i love the image

 

[Holly31]

That's a great idea, a black sock to keep it darker for them, yes, I'll do that next time (used a handy dark towel but will put a sock in my kit).

And I forgot to answer your questions about stitches: they heal really fast, so I"d remove it in 7 days as long as it looks healthy. If not, dab on some neosporin and give it a few more days.