A friend of mine ordered 25 straight run Americana's from a farm in Seattle this spring. I raised six of them for her, and they are very nice birds. One of the gray ones seems to be a rooster, and has a great personality. As I live in the city, I can have up to 19 hens, but no roosters unless they are decrowed.
Does anyone have experience with decrowing a rooster? My Mother thinks it is a bad thing to do, and will cause social issues with him. A couple of the other chickens look like they may turn out to be male, but I can find homes for them. I would like to keep the gray guy, but also want to be fair to him.
Rooster Decrowing
OMG! I'm not a vet or anything, but wouldn't that be like removing somebody's voice box??
Birds don't have voice boxes, all their chattering (and talking when it comes to parrots) comes from contracting and expanding their throats while exhaling. Thats why you can never get a quiet parrot!! I believe what someone was talking neutering them, then without testicles their hormones drop down to nothing and they don't crow.
Neato! Ya learn something every day! If it comes to neutering though, it was discussed on another thread and is apparently a rather difficult and expensive procedure.
You can take this to the bank ....... most any DVM is gonna charge $150-$200 for the operation. I can't imagine anyone concluding that having a rooster is worth that much money being spent. I'd rather glue some tail feathers on a hen for the extra $$ (LOL). I've read in a poultry chat room last year that there is a DVM in the Phoenix, AZ area doing this specific operation to "de-crow roosters" (this is a coincidence). This is one kinda funny - kinda odd idea.
This message was edited Aug 24, 2007 8:20 AM