Next spring I'll be getting meat and layer chicks and want to know the most efficient and painfree way to?

Question

kill them; what do you suggest?

Thanks, the running off or flapping thing was my biggest concern...I don't want to have a hatchet in my hand and have something flailing in the other!

Answer 1

I use a killing cone. I like them, because it hold the chicken in place, while they bleed out. No flapping around, or worse yet, headless birds running off.

I put them in the cone, headfirst of course, and slip my index and ring finger around their head. With a VERY sharp knife, we cut the heads totally off. (We do rabbits the same way)


Here's a link to a very well written homesteading site, of a lady and her two young sons, and how they butcher the birds. I think they have a good homemade set up.


http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2006/08/processing-chickens-with-my-son.html

I've seen a killing cone made with a large orange road cone. It was being used to kill turkeys.

If you are doing a number of chickens at a time, it helps to have more than one cone. You can buy them, expensive at $45 or so, or make them yourself. Cheap and easy to make.

~Garnet
Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 2

CO2 is the most painless. A sharp knife to cut their throats is the fastest and is also painless.

When they were killing flocks that had bird flu exposure they used CO2. When they kill commercially they use knives.

Answer 3

hey bumper crop eat a chick from the store yuck who knows where it been

Answer 4

How can you eat the poor thing after you had mangle it?
Yuck.
I buy them at the supermarket.