I too have learned quite a lot! This begs the question…can ducks be “gelded”?
Probably. The testes are up near the kidneys though.
A castrated cockerel is called a capon, and it’s done when they’re young, before they develop secondary sexual characteristics. They grow quickly to a very good carcass weight, without the behavioral issues of an intact male bird. They can also make nice broody birds. A quick Google doesn’t turn up much of anything about caponizing ducks but it could theoretically be done?
But caponizing in general is nearly never done now. The skill has been largely lost.
The drake in this thread would be too old to caponize. The behavior is set, and the testes have a very established blood supply.
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Hmmmmm… but if this quarantine goes on long enough and I get bored enough to dive into old bird castration techniques on Dr. Google, I may just grab some tequila and give caponizing a go… if only for the quarantine story
KIDDING. Thanks for all the education! I‘ve learned more on this thread than I bargained for! COTH, you never cease to amaze me
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Haha @Cocorona !! Hopefully you don’t get THAT bored!
There are videos like this one of people who are very good at the procedure who make it look like a “yeah maybe I could figure that out okay” thing.
And then there are videos like this one that make it clear that it’s a whole lot of digging around deep inside a not very big fully awake animal looking for something that’s the size of maybe a grain of rice and perhaps it’s not a great idea after all.
(First video okay for the squeamish, second is not.)
Thanks for the giggle. I was believing you, until you said “KIDDING”. :lol:
Capons were still a thing when I was a kid. Not in the supermarket though, my mother got them from a butcher shop.
It would certainly be quite the quarantine story. The Capon is back! (due to an epidemic and a stir crazy chicken owner)
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If you want to learn more about ducks and have a laugh, go onto YouTube and search for the video called True Facts about Ducks…it’s very informative but also hilarious. You’ll love the narrator.
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Thought I’d come back and update everyone- we did end up getting three more female ducklings (really this time) and kept them separate until their feathers came in before integrating them with the “big ducks.” They lived together as a 5-some for a month before we took them back down to the coop and used a roll of rabbit fencing to split the run in half to keep them separate from the chickens. Another month or two of that before we started letting all the birds free range together before we took the fencing down. And now everyone is incorporated and happy- there is no drama!
Getting the extra girls seems to have made our Drake way more docile. He no longer harasses the chickens and is kinder on the female ducks too! Thanks again for everyone weighing in. We did look into rehoming but couldn’t find something that seemed suitable for him- in the end biting the bullet and getting a few more worked (chicken/duck math seems a lot like horse math). Thanks all!
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@Cocorona Thanks to your update & the NatGeo article linked, I learned more about ducks than I needed to know :lol:
Glad your Poultry Math solved your problem.
Also glad that human men, unlike drakes, do not possess that unique “ability”.
Just imagine… :eek:
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In case anyone is now bored enough to consider caponizing their cockerels, warning, graphic photos:
I really want to know, if anyone becomes bored enough to caponize their cockerels.:yes:
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That does seem like pathological levels of boredom. Like, when THAT seems like the only thing that will cure your boredom? You’ve already ruled out tweezing all the lint from your neighbors’ hair dryer vents? You’ve arranged all spices alphabetically, in reverse, by the cyrillic alphabet, and now the only thing you can come up with to alleviate the doldrums is duck balls?
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Well, it’s chicken “balls” but yes, I think that caponizing your cockerel could be ranked right up there in the ultimate level of boredom.
Honestly, I’ve considered caponizing cockerels. I hatch chicks all summer and (unsurprisingly!) wind up with a lot of boys. Making them capons would give me better feed efficiency, make them less LOUD, and reduce any bickering in the boy grow out pen. I’d get better carcass weight in less time with less annoyance. Yay, right?
That video I linked earlier in this thread of the guy working his way through birds in just a few seconds a bird makes it look easy.
The second video linked, and this link just posted, make it more clear that you’re digging around inside an awake animal looking for something very tiny.
TBH, if someone local was very proficient and could either caponize the boys or mentor me, I’d probably try it! But learning off youtube seems a bitch of a stretch, no? 😂
:lol::lol:
