when/how to caponize cockerel?

[frankenchick]

I have a beautiful cockerel (24 w/o) that I want to keep, but I don't want fertile eggs. How/when does one caponize a cockerel?

 

[matthewschickens]

If you neuter him he will stop crowing and stop all male behavior.

Matthew

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Quote:

No, it won't stop him from crowing.

By the way, frankenchicken, why do you not want fertile eggs?

 

[Sunny Side Up]

It seems the only purpose for caponizing a cockerel is to allow him to grow meatier than he would if left intact. I don't know if it changes their behavior, if it makes them more docile, if it keeps them from crowing, if it makes them disinterested in mating. It's done on young standard-breed cockerels as early as they can be identified as male. That way they will grow up to be heavier and meatier when it's time to butcher them. Otherwise they would take a long time & require a lot more feed to get to a worthwhile weight.

I don't know if you could or should try this operation on a full-grown adult rooster. Even if the operation was done to make him meatier I don't know if either of you would benefit from it at this age.

Why don't you want fertile eggs? They're just as good as sterile ones to eat, and if you collect them daily there's NO risk of finding a developing chick embryo inside.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I tell you what. I have books on the subject and its on my to-do list, but I haven't done it yet. I can try to explain, but even if you read the books, as I have, it would still be scary. Now you want to keep your roo......how about one that you don't want to keep? If you have one that you don't care about, why don't you slaughter him and after he dies, you do as the books say and caponize a dead rooster for the experience. As a matter of fact, I have one that I might do the surgery on very soon. I could have done it earlier, but didn't. My bad. It would be a good skill to have. Really though, if you don't know how to preform the surgery, I wouldn't do it if I wanted the roo to live. If you can find someone that knows how to do it around you, I would make arrangements with him/her. I believe the recommended age is about 3 weeks.

 

[CMV]

Check this out from the Meat Birds ETC section. The poster did his surgeries on 6 week old roosters, so I don't know if it would work out for a rooster as old as yours. You may send the poster a PM and ask for any helpful hints.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2489274

 

[frankenchick]

Thanks for the input. I guess I should've said, "I don't want too many chickens." I don't have a prejudice against fertile eggs, but I do get customers who ask. I think they're afraid of finding an embryo (and if they grew up on a farm, I guess they have good reason).

Q1: what if I gather eggs every day, but don't use/sell them right away? Will the embryo develop, or will refrigerating the egg kill it?

I guess caponizing is out of the question. Fudge is here purely as eye candy, but we are attached to him and my kids would never forgive me if I operated and he died.

Q2: I have hens who go broody; will they hide eggs to hatch if they have a roo around? I'm not interested in raising mutts. I know I shouldn't even have him around in that case, but by the time I began to be sure (well, fairly sure) that Fudge was a he, my kids were in love.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
If you collect the egg right away (discard, or save for your own use, any where their age is in question, e.g. a floor egg that might've sat there a few days before being noticed) and refrigerate or store somewhere cool, there WILL NOT BE AN EMBRYO.

Go read the sticky at the top of the 'incubating and hatching eggs' part of the forum, it takes some experience and good eyes to TELL whether an egg is fertile

(it is a question of whether that pale whitish circle on the yolk -- NOT the squiggly white bits -- is a single circle, sort of like a full moon behind hazy clouds, or whether it has a subtle ringed appearance like there is a concentric clear zone partway out)

Q2: I have hens who go broody; will they hide eggs to hatch if they have a roo around? I'm not interested in raising mutts. I know I shouldn't even have him around in that case, but by the time I began to be sure (well, fairly sure) that Fudge was a he, my kids were in love.

Unless your chickens are free range and could potentially hie themselves off under a neighbor's bush where you would not find *the hen* for three weeks or more, then no, they are not going to be hatching secret broods of chicks. If you find them setting, you can decide what to do about it, you need only have chicks produced if you want to.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​

 

[canada-goose]

Quote:
That's what caponizing means!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
Think of your fertile eggs as seeds. They have the potential to develop into chickens, but will remain in a sort of suspended animation until kept in just the right conditions to initiate growth. That is, in constant moist heat like you'd find under a broody hen or an electric incubator. It's not that the refrigerator will kill the embryos but rather the cold will not allow growth. Neither will keeping them on the counter at room temperature. Neither will conditions in a typical nest box with hens going in & out all day.

Q2: I have hens who go broody; will they hide eggs to hatch if they have a roo around? I'm not interested in raising mutts. ...

Do your hens free-range all day? I keep my hens in their pen until about 2 pm so they'll lay most of their eggs in the nest boxes. If a hen decides to go broody she'll most likely make her nest in the pen. If so, then I can put her in the Broody Buster right away & she can go back to laying. If I find a hidden nest with a hen brooding on it, I can still put her in the Broody Buster & bury those eggs.

But keep in mind that mixed-breed chickens (mutts) are just as good as purebreds except they cannot be entered in poultry shows. Otherwise they usually make good layers & meat birds, often come in new & interesting colors & patterns, and have extra hybrid vigor.​