Keeping a rooster quiet?

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There are things you can do to minimize the sound, but as many have stated, it really depends on the rooster. In my experience, the more docile breeds of rooster are quieter, BUT just like any other quality, exceptions exist. You tend to have to go through a few before you find one that suits your needs in areas such as temperament(how he treats non chickens), flock management style (how he treats chickens), and territoriality (the crowing/posturing amount)

I've read all sorts of strategies but I'm relatively new to keeping chickens in an urban environment so I haven't had the chance to try them all, and honestly some might work for some roosters and not at all for others. You said you wouldn't try a no-crow collar--I get it, but I'll go over them as I've tried them myself: there are multiple designs and it's possible to make your own out of double sided velcro or even trying a small infant sock (obviously cut off the toe bit or your rooster will just be super confused). I've played around with them a bit, and it seems to me that the most important thing is that it has to be at least 2" wide where it sits on the air sac, or it won't have any kind of effect. They don't stop them from crowing either, they just make it where they can't fully expand the air sac they use to crow. I've never had a rooster injure themselves with them, but I've been super cautious...watching them for at least 30 minutes the first time it's on/anytime it's adjusted, and tightening it slowly (only once a day) until it affects the crow, so that they have time to get used to it.

Otherwise, you can put them in a restrictive cage/box when you don't want them to be crowing, basically large enough for them to comfortably sit but not stand up fully and extend their neck to crow. This solution might be the best for you since you don't care about day time crowing.

I've read also that having a high hen to rooster ratio (over the 10:1) will keep him too busy to crow. I've had mixed results with this. It seems that if the hens are bossy, it works, but if they aren't, it doesn't...so if you have docile breeds this probably isn't a good strategy.

Since you haven't built your coop yet, you can try insulating it, or at least putting a void space in the walls (like how drywall is in a house, but with plywood or whatever) to muffle crowing sounds. Baffle walls/fences and shrub screens around the chicken run/coop will also have a similar effect, but can be expensive or take a while to become effective.

Thanks so much to TheAlrightyGina for this very informative post. I was thinking the same thing about putting sound insulation in the walls of the coop. As with buildings, anything rough and not smooth helps. Open Egg cartons would be great sound baffles too! But you'd probably want it sandwiched between walls so it doesn't just collect tons of uncleanable dust. The idea of a too-short to fully extend the neck box is interesting. Tall enough for them to stand up, of course, but not get that last bit of crowing height. Measure twice! or maybe 5x! I"m going to try the baby sock on our new high-volume roo.