Training my cockerel to not crow with squirts

[Tonyroo]

I didn't write this up to attract people who enjoy the sound of their roosters crowing. I wrote this post to attract people who are struggling with ideas on how to keep neighbors happy and abide by local laws for backyard chicken keeping. I'm here for the person looking at no crow collars and despairing. I personally have no beef with them crowing, why would I? I know that roosters crow, that it's what they do, and I love chickens. This isn't about that. It's about doing whatever I can to not see him turned into a single chicken nugget.

I totally understand your situation to use a humane way to train a rooster. Chickens do have the ability to learn either from other chickens or there owner. Consistency and patience should get results.

I personally love my rooster, if I was in your situation I would make every attempt to keep him. Keep up the possible discovery and methods. I'm sure like minds will appreciate it.

 

[WestTNriverrat]

I’m in the you do your chickens your way crowd. If you think this is the way you want to try to keep your pet go for it don’t let anyone else tell you how take care of your live stock.

I train mine with a high powered pellet rifle and a frying pan and don’t care if people dislike that fact.

 

[Bryce Thomas]

If you can, I would let him crow. Crowing is a natural part of a roosters life, to assert dominance, to do it for fun or just do crow just because he is a rooster. Im in FFA and every year we have rooster crow shows at county fairs where you train your rooster to crow and you will by judged by how you train him to crow, its pretty cool to see

I own a silkie rooster and his crows are loud enough to wake the dead, thank god my neighbors like waking to the sound of my rooster crowing (yes they told me they like my rooster crowing)

 

[cock a doodle doooooo]

... even more so if I was a bantam rooster.

Wow. This has been an adventure. I wanted to share and see if anyone else has tried this with success.

I read somewhere or heard from someone that they trained their rooster to not crow by hanging around all day next to the run with a squirt pistol, a lounge chair and a good book. I thought that sounded silly but it works to train cats to not do things we don't like in a safe, humane way. I decided to try.

Day 1 was the most interesting. At daybreak I'm out there in my jammies with a little pistol ready to go and he crowed and got shot about ten times before the gears started to very slowly turn. After 15 minutes goes by with no crowing, I turn to walk away and he starts crowing and he gets the squirts. Another 15 goes by and I go to leave again and he crowed as soon as I was past his point of view. I return to apply more squirts. Except this time I hide around the corner of the shed 2 feet away and wait. He crows, I squirt, and hide. After an hour of no crows I packed it in and went to work. 3 total hours were spent over the course of the half hour before sunrise to the time I left the scene. A discovery was made day 1, and that's that a rooster can swallow his need to crow. He was still trying, but he was stopping any attempt to crow with me visible. This was important, because if I saw no signs of learning I'd likely have stopped trying. But he can! So I'm gonna keep trying.

Day 2 was much like day 1. It was sort of a "refresher course". It took only 1 hour this time instead of 3.

Day 3 and this time I've locked him in the coop where it's dark until 8 am. This way I can catch him at the first crow and keep on him with consistency. He has begun to watch to see when I go back in to the house to begin crowing. Since I greeted him first thing and immediately went to hide, no crows happened while I laid in ambush. So I go inside. If course, he crows. He watched me as I went in the house, and must think that since I'm not in the yard he's safe. He's very wrong, of course, so I watch and wait at the back patio door waiting for him to try. He crows, I bust out and book it across the lawn to apply squirts. His insolence is annoying me. I begin assuming he gets the point, knows what I want from him, but he's gonna push every boundary trying to do what he wants. So I grab the hose, set to "destroy" and wait. He crows and I run to the coop and give him an "I said I mean BUSINESS" blast. I go back inside. 15 minutes pass and he crows again and I give him another taste of the hose. No crowing after. I come out and towel him off so he's not soaking wet. The jokes I have been crafting about this are amazing, juvenile and delightfully NSFW.

Day 4, also today! This time husband has volunteered to squirt the rooster. He's already up before dawn for work anyways, so I guess he thought he would try for a while. Hubs used just the pistol, no hose, spent a half hour applying my methods and I'm sitting here writing to you all hearing only the low murmur of road noise and wild birds. It is glorious. I woke at 7:45 and haven't heard any crowing. I really think this is working. Hubs and I discussed building a turret with a mic that would pick up a dB level and fire, so that we could pin him in a show cage with his own food and water and be away all day while the turret takes care of solving the problem of consistency. Because we both work, after we go for the day we can't be consistent. But it would take a few weeks to acquire parts and construct. In the mean time, low budget hustle n' squirt is going to continue.

I will return for day 5.

Ha ha good on you... Everyone else seems to be putting you down for you effort, I've got a rooster that runs around the house from 5am and crows every 2 min for 2 hrs. He's nuts, but just competing with other roosters in the distance... I heard Gaffa tape fixes many things ha ha joke

 

[McChooky]

I don't recommend ordering(pullet) chicks from Purely Poultry if the breed and sex matters. 9 out of 10 of my chicks were pullets. But 1/2 were the wrong breed or gender.I only ended up with only 5 pure breed chicks of the endangered breed I ordered.

 

[CuriousChicken]

Either I lose my pet that I raised from an egg that I care for quite a bit or he goes away forever. I'm not allowed to have a rooster that crows. Go ahead and be sad, but this could mean the difference between his head coming off with scissors and a long, happy life. Decide which is more sad.

I had this problem too, when my first roo was young. Squirting doesnt work. Crowing is instinctual, almost like sneezing. They cant help it. You are better off trying a no crow collar, or devising a time out spot. A covered cage, or a dark closet works well. And you can take it a step further by adding sound absorbing materials.

 

[Isadora]

@SarahLadd do you have an update on how the squirt training is going?

 

[McChooky]

If you can, I would let him crow. Crowing is a natural part of a roosters life, to assert dominance, to do it for fun or just do crow just because he is a rooster. Im in FFA and every year we have rooster crow shows at county fairs where you train your rooster to crow and you will by judged by how you train him to crow, its pretty cool to see

I own a silkie rooster and his crows are loud enough to wake the dead, thank god my neighbors like waking to the sound of my rooster crowing (yes they told me they like my rooster crowing)

Some neighbors dislike getting woke up to the sound of roosters crowing all hours of the night . Not all neighbors are the same fortunately.You're lucky.

 

[kk+chickens]

Wow. This has been an adventure. I wanted to share and see if anyone else has tried this with success.

I read somewhere or heard from someone that they trained their rooster to not crow by hanging around all day next to the run with a squirt pistol, a lounge chair and a good book. I thought that sounded silly but it works to train cats to not do things we don't like in a safe, humane way. I decided to try.

Day 1 was the most interesting. At daybreak I'm out there in my jammies with a little pistol ready to go and he crowed and got shot about ten times before the gears started to very slowly turn. After 15 minutes goes by with no crowing, I turn to walk away and he starts crowing and he gets the squirts. Another 15 goes by and I go to leave again and he crowed as soon as I was past his point of view. I return to apply more squirts. Except this time I hide around the corner of the shed 2 feet away and wait. He crows, I squirt, and hide. After an hour of no crows I packed it in and went to work. 3 total hours were spent over the course of the half hour before sunrise to the time I left the scene. A discovery was made day 1, and that's that a rooster can swallow his need to crow. He was still trying, but he was stopping any attempt to crow with me visible. This was important, because if I saw no signs of learning I'd likely have stopped trying. But he can! So I'm gonna keep trying.

Day 2 was much like day 1. It was sort of a "refresher course". It took only 1 hour this time instead of 3.

Day 3 and this time I've locked him in the coop where it's dark until 8 am. This way I can catch him at the first crow and keep on him with consistency. He has begun to watch to see when I go back in to the house to begin crowing. Since I greeted him first thing and immediately went to hide, no crows happened while I laid in ambush. So I go inside. If course, he crows. He watched me as I went in the house, and must think that since I'm not in the yard he's safe. He's very wrong, of course, so I watch and wait at the back patio door waiting for him to try. He crows, I bust out and book it across the lawn to apply squirts. His insolence is annoying me. I begin assuming he gets the point, knows what I want from him, but he's gonna push every boundary trying to do what he wants. So I grab the hose, set to "destroy" and wait. He crows and I run to the coop and give him an "I said I mean BUSINESS" blast. I go back inside. 15 minutes pass and he crows again and I give him another taste of the hose. No crowing after. I come out and towel him off so he's not soaking wet. The jokes I have been crafting about this are amazing, juvenile and delightfully NSFW.

Day 4, also today! This time husband has volunteered to squirt the rooster. He's already up before dawn for work anyways, so I guess he thought he would try for a while. Hubs used just the pistol, no hose, spent a half hour applying my methods and I'm sitting here writing to you all hearing only the low murmur of road noise and wild birds. It is glorious. I woke at 7:45 and haven't heard any crowing. I really think this is working. Hubs and I discussed building a turret with a mic that would pick up a dB level and fire, so that we could pin him in a show cage with his own food and water and be away all day while the turret takes care of solving the problem of consistency. Because we both work, after we go for the day we can't be consistent. But it would take a few weeks to acquire parts and construct. In the mean time, low budget hustle n' squirt is going to continue.

I will return for day 5.

i really appreciate you sharing your ideas and experience! im really sorry so many people are being so negative. people think there are all these places to take roosters, but that’s not true. sexing chickens is rarely as high as 90% accurate and i spent hours, on many occasions looking for a good home for a rooster, but the sad reality is that there are way too many people looking to rehome their roosters and not many places that take them. the few places i’ve found are done taking more. i agree with the person who talked about how it’s like training a dog not to bark, it’s not hurting him. my little guy is currently 9 weeks and he is so attached to me! always getting up on my shoulder to snuggle in my neck and stuff like that. i know that he has the best life here. he loves me and he loves his sisters and separating them would be awful for all involved. if all we have to do to keep him in his best life is train him to be quieter, i don’t think it needs a second thought. i think if he could understand the situation, he would agree.

 

[Krugerrand]

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong ... but where multiple roosters are in the flock, a dominant rooster may stop others from crowing. If that happens naturally, is not this simply taking the role of the dominant rooster stopping the others from crowing? Apparently those other roosters can stop themselves from crowing and nobody complains that people are preventing their instinctual 'need to crow' by having too many roosters.