Different Approaches to Caponisation of Cockerels and Their Relation to Welfare

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Animal castration is done to obtain better meat and easier management, but it inevitably causes suffering for the animals. Minimizing the suffering during castration, when necessary, is a very meaningful area of ​​research. However, we have identified some issues in the paper, and addressing these issues will help improve it:

1. What is the purpose of fasting roosters for 24 hours before castration? If this is the standard castration procedure, what is the purpose of including an eighth group of roosters that were not fasted?
2. Lines 199-202 state that the euthanasia procedure for roosters should be placed after the castration procedure.
3. Lines 221-222: Why are two anesthetic drugs used? Are both drugs injected into each chicken, or is one drug used on some chickens and the other on others? Please provide specific details regarding the use of the anesthetic drugs.
4. Line 232: How was the cloacal temperature measured when the skin and testicles were incised? I don't seem to see temperature data in the subsequent results. What was the reason for measuring the temperature?
5. Line 250: What is the second testicular rotation (T2)? Is this the standard procedure for castration? Does the testicle rotate twice during castration?
6. Lines 315-318: The description of this result in the paper is not reflected in the table. You mentioned that castrated chickens showed a trend towards lower feed intake. "Trend" means there is no significant difference; if there is a significant difference, the wording here is inaccurate, and there is no p-value.
7. Lines 320-330: This is a description of the castration procedure and should be placed in the Materials and Methods section, not the Results section.

Minor issues:

a) Line 220, Table 1: Consistent capitalization.

b) Lines 298-302, Table 2: I don't understand the significance marking method in the table. According to your table notes, if I understand correctly, different "*" indicate normality of the data, and ns represents not significant. What represents significance? For example, in Group 8 of Median mass at day of caponisation, the significant difference between groups is "ALL". Does this mean there is significance between every group or only when compared with a specific group?

c) Some references lack a doi number.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The corrections are in the attached Word document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Please find attached my review report. Hopefully it will help you further improve the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The corrections are in the attached Word document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has made careful revisions and the quality of the article is quite good. It is recommended to accept it directly.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your thorough review of our manuscript and for your constructive and specific suggestions to improve the content. We truly appreciate the time and effort you invested in providing detailed feedback. All your comments and corrections have been carefully considered and fully addressed in the revised version of the manuscript. The corresponding changes are indicated in the text.

Thank you again for your valuable contribution to improving the quality of our work.

Kind regards,

Alenka Dovč

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Please find attached my report, which includes some additional suggestions for further improvement.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your thorough review of our manuscript and for your constructive and specific suggestions to improve the content. We greatly appreciate the time and effort you invested in providing detailed feedback. All your comments and corrections have been carefully considered and fully addressed in the revised version of the manuscript. The corresponding changes are indicated in the text (see attachment).

Thank you again for your valuable contribution to improving the quality of our work.

Kind regards,

Alenka Dovč

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf