Do you slaughter your birds in front of the flock?

[PotterWatch]

I agree that chickens don't care. Here, the birds that are waiting for slaughter are far removed from the other meaties. My kids go get about a dozen at a time from the pasture and they are held in 5gal buckets (with plenty of air holes of course), until they are put in a cone. That is simply how our property is set up though, not by design to keep them out of sight of the processing area. Our layers are free-range though and they love it when it is processing day. I always have to chase them away from the gut bucket, otherwise they spend their whole day chasing each other around for whatever goody one of them managed to snatch. I figure if a chicken will eat its kin in nature, it won't much care about the ones I am processing other than as a source of food.

 

[dancingflower68]

I find it hard to believe the chickens don't care..just my opinion....when one of mine got injured and had to be in the house, one of her flockmates would always come running when I would bring her out to visit, and they would greet each other and it was obvious they were happy to be back together. After Peaches had to be put to sleep, the same one would come running up to the fence looking for her everytime I came out. It took awhile for her to realize she wasn't coming back.

 

[speedy2020]

It time to get rid of the rooster. There is plenty around so no need to keep a mean one.

 

[geepy]

I keep them happy till the end. And I have had to chase quite a few from the gut bucket and the cleaning table. I'm not their IQ is topping the charts......just saying.

 

[Buster52]

Interesting to note those who do a lot of processing don't see a problem with it, and those who don't, do.

So what's that tell you?

 

[Haloclimb]

We did our roosters away from the chickens, but they wandered up anyway.
I lost all faith in the notion that 'they understand and it scares them' when one of our hens grabbed and RAN OFF WITH HER BROTHERS LEG.
And then all the others came running down and started fighting over the discarded wing ends and the gizzard, so I gave up trying to shoo them off.

They ended up helping with the clean up, snatching up any spare piece of meat or fat from where I was skinning their brothers

I kept yelling 'Thats your brother, your sick the lot of you!!!' But of course they were too busy shaking one of their dear brothers crops to get at the seeds, the buggers.

And even after I had done all the spare roosters and was still covered in blood (we had used an axe...very messy) the chickens just kept clucking around and looking at me as if to say 'got any more?'
If they were frightened or understood what was happening, you can bet they would have been on the other side of the house, or more likely, in our neighbours coop. Instead they were too busy being cannibals

 

[Henery Hawk]

I must have a sick sense of humor because some of these responses almost made me spit milk all over my laptop.

 

[what did I do]

I voted no but as I think about it we chop the heads off right outside the coop. We do not let the chickens out to free range until after we are finished processing the birds. They drive me batty if they are hanging around picking up the guts and eating them while we work. The chickens come out only after we finish cleaning up.

 

[LilyD]

I process close to the coop but on the other side of the fence. The only time the chickens seem distressed is is I go in to take out the extra roos and have to chase them. That was the first time and they did get distressed with the. The next time I processed I started very early morning and didn't have to chase the extra roos cause they were still sleeping. The other chickens came to the other side of the fence and were watching what I was doing and really wanted to get out and help me with what I was doing. I think the biggest problem is that we look on our chickens and give them human emotions rather than enjoying them for the way they think and feel. They do worry that we are going to kill them when we chase them. Their nature is to be untrusting of large predators ( of which we are one). They can be taught that we will not harm them by practice and repetition. I pick mine up and band them every few weeks. Mainly so I know which I am thinking of keeping and which are for sale or for food. They get to the point where they are okay being picked up and held and they will even let me pick them up while they are free ranging around the yard. This makes it easier when I take them out of the coop for processing. There is no fear at all and they are relaxed. I think it really helps.

 

[evergreen1]

what slaughter method do you all use?