124 MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



The question, "Does caponizing pay?" may be answered, "Some- 

 times it does and sometimes it does not." 



Capons as Brooders 



Capons make excellent mothers when trained to it Some breeds 

 would probably make more affectionate and attentive foster moth- 

 ers than others. I can personally answer for the Cornish Indian 

 Games and Plymouth Rocks. I have also seen beautiful Brown 

 Leghorn capons that had raised several broods of chickens. Cock- 

 erels hatched in November, December and January, make excellent 

 capons for brooding. They should be caponized at about three 

 months of age. Should be gently handled and never frightened, 

 when they will become perfectly tame. The capon with its changed 

 nature is even more timid than a hen or pullet, and for this reason 

 should be separated from any of the older fowls and kindly treated. 



Capons should be trained at the age of about six months. They 

 are easier to train at this age than at any other time, generally, but 

 I have trained them at ten months of age. To train them, I keep 

 the bird in solitary confinement for a few days, placing him in a 

 cracker box; place water, grit and sand in the box the same as 

 though preparing for a hen and her brood. After two or three soli- 

 tary nights and days I put two little chicks under him at night ; they 

 snuggle up under him, and he is quite glad to have the little fel- 

 lows for company. The next mofning he will look a little surprised 

 perhaps, but usually takes them immediately, and soon begins to 

 cluck to them like an old hen. The following evening I put as 

 many as I intend him to care for under him, and before going to bed 

 at night see that all the little fellows are under his sheltering feath- 

 ers. My object in using the cracker box is that it is about the 

 proper height to make it uncomfortable for the capon to stand up- 

 right and he will sit for comfort; the little chicks get closer and 

 make friends quicker, and have an opportunity to nestle under the 

 capon as they would a hen. This training should be done in pleas- 

 ant weather, because the chicks will not be hovered at first as well 

 by the capon as the hen, and I use only a few chicks the first time, 

 because a young capon with his first brood does not hover them 

 like a trained one. 



The Whiskey Treatment 



Hen-hatched chicks take to a capon without any trouble, but 

 chicks which have been several days in a brooder seem afraid of 

 the capon, and instead of running to him to be hovered, huddle in a 

 corner, so it is best to put them straight from the incubator under 

 the capon. A writer on this subject says: "Should one of the 

 capons pick the chicks I would take him out of the box and swing 

 him around in a verticle circle at arm's length until he was sick, 

 then put him back again. If he attempts the same thing again, I 

 take a small glass syringe and inject about one tablespoonful of 

 good whiskey into his crop through his mouth, and after this treat- 

 ment he is pretty sure to take to the chicks. He becomes so docile 

 that he allows the chicks to pick at his face and will not pick back 



