How to raise Backyard Chickens: Re: [CHICKENS-101] Re: How to kill a chicken

You beat me to the punch. We slaughtered our turkeys this year and the most humane way we could find was to hang upside down and slit the jugular vein. We used a five gallon bucket with a hole large enough for the head to fit through. They do become calm when hanging upside down and I really want to think the pain was minimal............the blood loss caused the loss of consciousness and turkey appeared to fall asleep prior to the cessation of the heartbeat.

Six years ago I would have told you "NO WAY will we kill any of my animals"...........then it was "NO WAY can I kill any of our animals" and now we are able to do it. Not pleasant, never is..........but we take good care of them and they have a good life up until the end. Too many roosters aren't good for the flock....so they are good for the stew pot.

I needed an alternative way to do it that didn't result in blood splattering all over and they thought of missing or needing to use the hatchet twice just made me cringe. I think our way is the best for us.

Laura

On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 7:39 AM, Rebecca <luckydog23@msn.com> wrote:

On the one hand I did find this very interesting. On the other hand, I know I don't have the constution to do this myself. I found a local gal who will butcher (including defeathering with a whizbang) for a small fee.

by the way: if you don't want your birds flopping about after having their heads chopped, my neighbor uses a road cone that has the top trimmed so that just the head and neck stick out. this allows the bird first to relax into the cone, then once its head is removed, bleed out into a bucket while the body thrashes. Takes less than five minutes before its ready to toss into the plucker.