186 



CAPONS AND CAPONIZING. 



(S. F. Lipscomb, Agricultural College, Columbia, Mo.) 



Capons are a rare thing on most farms, because the people who 

 raise poultry have not yet realized what they are and the profits they 

 bring. In most of the eastern states capons can be found on nearly 

 every farm, and they bring the best prices of any fowl sold on the 

 market. Some poultrymen claim the reason they are not raised here 

 is because there is no market for them. It is true, there is no market 

 in most of the small towns and cities, but if they raise enough to 

 make a shipment to Chicago, Boston or New York they would be very 

 readily sold and fancy prices paid for them. Also, the cities of St. 

 Louis and Kansas City are beginning to call for them for the best 

 trade. There is no reason at all why the people shouldn't raise more 

 capons than they do. Instead of having a lot of young cockerels 

 running loose around on the farm, eating more feed than they are 

 worth, and always fighting each other, they could be caponized and 

 be worth several times the value of a cockerel, and yet not eat much 

 more feed. Caponizing has been in practice for several centuries in 

 foreign countries, but the people here seem to be very slow in taking 

 hold of a good thing. Every year the farmer or poultryman loses 

 money on his market cockerels, and there is only one good way to 

 remedy this, and that is to caponize them. Cockerels at the age of 

 two to four months will barely pay for themselves, and as they grow 

 older they decrease in value and increase in .expense. This is just 

 the opposite with the capon. 



A capon is a male bird (cockerel or rooster) from which the 

 testicles have been removed. He bears the same relation to a rooster 

 that a steer does to a bull. He has only one function in life, and that 

 is to get fat. He grows much faster, the comb and wattles cease to 

 grow, his plumage is heavy and beautiful, he gets very lazy, spurs do 

 not grow, and neither hen nor rooster have any more to do with him. 

 Later on he becomes a very intimate friend of the little chickens and 

 sometimes broods over them at night. If the poultryman expects 

 to stay in business, the capon is an absolute necessity. He makes 

 quick, tender meat, much of it and, best of all, he brings the highest 

 price on the market. If properly dressed, he attracts the attention 

 of the best buyers, to whom money is no object, if they can get what 

 they want. To the great profit of the farmer, these epicures find what 

 they want in the capon and, best of all, he is sure money, quick 

 money and easy money. Caponizing has at last solved the problem 

 as to what to do with the extra cockerels that are not needed for 

 breeding. 



When raising capons the breed should be very carefully con- 

 sidered, because crosses of certain breeds make much larger birds. 

 P. H. Sprague, a prominent dealer in Chicago, says: "The largest 

 capons, according to our information, are produced by crossing a 

 Dorking male with Brahma hens. The best quality is then produced 

 by saving the pullets and mating them with Indian Game males." 



