To buy or not to buy?...

[ninjawesome]

Hey guys, I have a Self Blue D'Uccle Bantam rooster who is one of my favorites. We want to get him a no-crow collar for a couple reasons, but one is to not upset the neighbors. I want to just let his crowing be, but I'm not sure the neighbors will. I looked at all the reviews on BYC and Amazon, and quite a few of those people lost their roosters due to the collar. Should I get one? Is there any other collar or product that works better? If my bantam dies because I get him a collar, I might as well sell him. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have no experience with such things, roosters are born to crow, why stifle a behavior that defines an animal, I would imagine they cause stress and an unhappy life. If you are not allowed roosters than don't keep them. I have a trio of d'uccle roosters, they love crowing.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

x2, sorry. Are you allowed to have a rooster? If you are, there are things you could do to keep him fairly quiet without the collar (dark curtains, let them out of the coop later, ect).

 

[Teila]

Howdy ninjawesome

I am in a no rooster zone and for this reason do not personally have experience with the no crow collar as I do not want to try and push the limits and draw unwanted attention to my gals so stay within the regulations. However, I have researched it and have a friend who uses one on her rooster.

The collar does not work on all roosters.
It can take a couple of weeks of tweaking to get the right setting.
There is definitely a choking hazard.

My friend had a BCM rooster on who she trialed the collar and it took her probably 3 weeks to get it right and even then he still had to sleep in his darkened man cave with the collar on so that the neighbours could not hear him. She felt mean doing this and ended up finding him a home where he could crow to his heart’s delight. She did, however, keep one of his sons on who the collar does work enough that he can sleep with his gals on the roost and the neighbours cannot hear his crow attempts.

BUT she nearly lost her first rooster during the tweaking period, he started choking, got dizzy etc

If you are allowed to have roosters and just want to not wake the neighbours early, personally, I would prefer to trial a rooster coop which is darkened and insulated. That way he can still crow during the day, there is no risk of choking and early in the morning, everyone gets a sleep in