Poultry: humane killing methods for culling stock

I don't eat meat so not keen on wringing necks :D But do think it's good that you are enquiring about doing it humanely.

Would be good if someone could show you how it is done. Perhaps a local farmer/chicken keeper dude? :)
 
Hold bird upside down. Place head just on floor facing behind you. Broom handlebehind head, feet on either end of broom and pull legs sharply and with force upwards. Worst case=head comes off.
Do it speedily so you're not standing on the poor birds nexk and with a sturdy broom handle. Speedy and relatively humane I think.
 
turkeys are put in a sort of funnel, head down, the head pokes out the bottom and the funnel contains the rest of the bird so there is no flapping around, they then have there throats cut, not sure how humane this actually is, but it happens to a few million of them every december
 
Agree with the broom handle to head method, although when we had to knock the last few on the head I pointed to one my OH had missed but he had seen it and WHACK my hand got the full force of 2' of shovel handle. Quite impressive swelling and bruising for a week.
 
I dont like wringing necks, so so many people think they can do it and after swinging the bird around for a minute chuck it on the pile and think its dead, when really its still alive.

hold your bird facing down, holding behind the wings at the chest cavity. Using a heavy blunt object, like a priest or equivalent (broom handle, big stick, torch ect ect).

lean the bird forwards so its head sticks out, and aim for the base of the skull. One or two hard precise blows should be effective.
 
The only legal way to dispatch poultry is to stun them with an electric stunner. Most people won't have access to one of these. So the answer is: There isn't a humane way to do it. Possibly the second best method is to drop the bird in a traffic cone fixed to the wall,that has been cut to take the bird so it's head sticks out of the bottom. The cone also stops the bird flapping about. The neck is then cut through the jugular (the bird needs to be bled before eating and to improve the keeping qualities) this immediately stops the blood supply to the brain so effectively it's dead. I'm curious how you can bleed the bird if you use the broom handle method? You can get a traffic cone from Jewsons or you can liberate one from the side of the road ( I did actually buy mine)
 
lazybee then you're into the argument about letting it bleed to death "fully conscious" - your method - or breaking it's neck. With the broom method you string the bird up and cut its throat after you have killed it by breaking its neck.

Your method is halal without the prayers.

*please note I'm not saying which side of the fence I'm standing on here!*
 
It is a bit tricky without being shown in person. If you dont think you can do it, get someone else. If you do it yourself do be afraid to do it hard, better pop the head off than not to dislodge the spinal cord and kill it cleanly. Our cockrel Brian is a bit under the weather ATM, I keep thinking if he is not better tomowrow I will have to do the deed, then he brightens up. I have killed many chickens before but I dont know if I can do it to him, even though he is a silly old butt head of a cockrel!
 
SusieT said:
Hold bird upside down. Place head just on floor facing behind you. Broom handlebehind head, feet on either end of broom and pull legs sharply and with force upwards. Worst case=head comes off.
Do it speedily so you're not standing on the poor birds nexk and with a sturdy broom handle. Speedy and relatively humane I think.
Click to expand...

This is how we did it when we had chickens (we had some as pets and some reared for meat. My OH and I went on a course that showed us how to humanely kill, gut, prepare, etc and the man said that the broomstick method is the most humane way as it severs the spinal cord leading to instant death.

I used to have the chickens on my lap and pet them till they calmed down and then quickly laid them down on the floor, put the broomstick over, stood quickly on the stick whilst holding the legs and then as I righted myself up and pulled, the chicken was dead.

You can tell that they are dead as you can feel the gap underneath the skin between the spinal cord and the head.
 
Can I also add that you should look to do this after dusk if possible...
Once all the birds are up to roost, calmly walk in and select the bird you want, support them as normal and walk as far away as you can from the rest of the flock before culling.
This causes no stress to the rest of the flock and minimal stress to the bird in question, not a nice thing to have to do but definately kinder than leaving them to suffer or buying meat from an intensively farmed or unknown source.
 
Ive had to do this quite alot, and trust me, a bash to the back of the head done correctly is by far the most humane way. No pain and complete loss of conciousness.

Can you imagine the pain and fear from someone slashing your throat and then holding you until you die, for me theres no crueller fate.
 
I have the problem that I have 2 broody hens. I am a sucker for this - last year one went broody and hatched 5 eggs 4 of which were hens and 1 cockeral -phew. I kept them all - I only had one little bantam cockeral and I figured 2 would be ok we have the flock size and the space.
Now 1 hen has hatched 4 chicks - can't tell sex yet. Anyway another hen has been sitting on a mountain of eggs, probably 13 or so. I have a friend who will have 7 or so hens from me, but what are the odds of getting a cockeral or 2 and what to do then. Maybe I should take all the eggs away. I doubt they will all be fertile? Noone wants cockerals. I had 2 stolen and killed. I suspect by neighbours annoyed at the early morning crowing. These 2 insisted on roosting in the barn and would crow out in the manege at daybreak. No other birds went just these 2 magnificent cockerals so I couldn't keep anymore than the 2 I have now. Suggestions please? I managed to home 1 once. A neighbour of mine kept dumping his on farmland (alive) around the neighbourhood which I thought was bad practice.
 
My husband did the killing of our chickens, and it was generally because they were cocks and they were doing too much rape and pillage. He either chopped their heads off, or pulled their necks. He became very good at it, but it always necessitated a trip to the pub, because it always upset him.

Needless to say when foxy got the last batch, we gave up.
 
my OH does the poorly ones with a sharp axe and a wooden block. very quick.
i'll wring their necks if i absolutely have to (if one's obv dying), i do it very thoroughly, put it that way. as said above, you have to be absolutely positive they're dead.
a friend had one's neck wrung, chucked it in the bin on top of the others, went to bin the next day and it was still alive... utterly appallingly cruel, that. :( :( :(
we never eat ours, btw.
no advice as to what to do with cockerels, but someone dumps them on farmland near us, really sad, poor things just hunker down in the ditches and wait to die. (i go and collect them and bring them home, sucker that i am.)
please tell your neighbour to at least leave the poor things near a hedge or some trees to give them some chance of roosting out of the way of foxes, if he doesn't already!
 
I'd agree the broomstick method is the most humane. Sit on a step, lodge the broomstick tightly behind the back of your knees. Hold the bird with it's wings closed, when you turn upside down they'll try to put their head up (hence the neck is at the right angle). Pull the bird up against the broom handle, this dislocates the neck. There are clips on you tube showing how it is done, my OH watched this before dispatching our poorly cockeral.
 
I've only ever culled sick birds but if it needs doing I get our neighbour, a retired farmer, to do the deed. He somehow dislocates their necks. It takes seconds and I don't think the birds suffer. Said neighbour also despatches any rabbits I find that are suffering from myxi, horrible disease. I wouldn't kill them myself because I'd be worried I'd get it wrong and cause unnecessary suffering. I don't eat meat either.
 
we only keep chickens for eggs as im too much of a wuss to try killing any for meat (so scared of getting it wrong and causing suffering).

Luckily there's a specialist poultry vet not too far from me so the ones we've had to cull (3 unwanted cockerels and one sick hen) have been taken there and put to sleep by injection - all very calmly and efficiently, and cost £5 per bird. Well worth it to me
 
Broomstick method is what I sometimes use, although preferably I use an air rifle I use for shooting rats. If you get someone to hold the bird facing away from you and shoot point blank at the base of the back of the skull it kills them instantly - they can flap about though afterwards so do it in the open not in a confined space!! I wouldn't try it on larger birds like geese or turkeys though - I'd use broom handle for them as the skull is pretty thick!!
 
I can't cull ours because I am too scared of not doing it properly and having them in pain. Our YO does it for me and has shown me how a few times but I just cannot do it. I would definitely get someone to show you how to do it whatever method you use. I had one PTS by the vet once, it took 15 minutes to die and I was covered in blood from the vet trying to find a vein! The next time I had to have one culled after a fox attack, I took her to the vets with the 2 cockerels but she was too badly injured to treat, the new vet pulled her neck so I figure that is probably the most humane.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top