Electric chicken stunner

[BigTone]

Thanks for the reply, I didn't think of it that way, thanks for the education. ~Anthony

 

[chooks4life]

You're very welcome, and thanks for being open minded.

Best wishes.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

I'd rather know from the animal's reaction whether I've done it wrong or not, than stun them and never be any the wiser as I repeat an inhumane procedure regularly, inflicting untold amounts of torture and agony on victims that cannot express their suffering.

Excellent post and excellent point. I've heard statements from folks who were "tazerded" and the experience was extremely painful. You comment above is why, even if I have help with the butchering/processing, I am always the one to dipatch my own chickens. I hate doing it, but at least I know that it is being done as quickly and with as little stress and trauma as I a capable and that I've learned from the errors I've made.

I applaud BigTone for wanting to make the experience as humane as possible. I think that is the #1 concern for most of us on this forum but the goal should ultimately be to make it as stress free for the chicken, rather than simply stress free for us.

 

[BigTone]

I bring my chickens to a local Mennonite family to have them dispatched and processed. They do a great job, I was just looking into doing them myself to save on the cost. I trust these folks, they have been doing it for a long time and they have a very professional set-up, attitude, and they treat my animals with respect, that's what's important to me. ~Anthony

 

[ChaoSS]

Just to offer a contrary point to think about, if you are going to struggle with making a killing blow with a hatchet it likely would be more humane to stun it first, because if it isn't moving it is easier to land a humane killing blow. If you are nervous about the animal moving at just the wrong time and you inflicting a painful injury on it, maybe just stunning it first will help with that.

We can discuss humane all we want, but things happen. My first chicken I killed wad outside the run when I got home, flapping around with a broken wing, unable to get off of his back. I have no idea how long he had been like that. Maybe he heard me get home from work and got excited and injured himself a minute before I saw him. Maybe he had been like that for ten hours. Who knows? Doesn't seem very humane to me.

 

[chooks4life]

Breaking their neck works well, so does a custom made restraint you use when bringing them to the cull site. I don't know of anyone offhand who's struggled to make the cull humane via hatchet who has then persisted with that method without getting more efficient, but some people aren't too kind, that's for sure.

Best wishes.

 

[MeepBeep]

For those that can't stomach 'cutting' to cull, you can build a small gas chamber out of a Rubbermaid container and gas them...

The suffocation reflex is triggered when there is a build up of CO2, it's NOT triggered by a shortage of oxygen, so as long as you use a gas that doesn't burn or cause pain they just go to sleep as the brain is deprived of oxygen... Helium works well and is easy to obtain, as is nitrogen or argon all available reasonably (less tank deposit or purchase) at a welding shop, and they cause no pain or sense of suffocation...

Note that using CO2 (even though commonly used) generally causes a stress period before death unless it's concentration is very closely regulated...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation

 

[chooks4life]

I've been struggling with this issue myself. I've lost chickens to predators and illness, and know that culling can be much more humane than letting "nature take its course." I've read the pdf of the Animal Welfare Approved website. As a physician, I see the erroneous assumption that "unconsciousness" equates to the inability to experience pain. In humans unconsciousness may inhibit the "conscious" experience of pain - but an unconscious patient can still experience pain and react to it by withdrawal from the source of pain. I love my chickens but I'm far from presuming what their conscious of experience of their world or their experience might be...
Having seen far too many human deaths, I can only hope that my death and theirs is limited to the 30 seconds of experience that the Animal Welfare Approved organization hypothesizes would happen without stunning the animal. To my mind, what happens in the minutes, hours, days or years leading up to their demise is far more important to their humane treatment than the brief seconds that encompass their death.

X2, very much agree.

I had quite the conversation on another thread about culling methods where the person I was talking with didn't realize (or refused to recognize) there's a difference between being stunned and actual unconsciousness.

And then, even in true unconsciousness, pain can still be experienced as you say, basically we only hope it's humane. He was going by the industry definition not the medical one, stating that unconsciousness and being stunned are the same thing. Industry definitions in that case are clearly a matter of legal convenience not actually supported by anything particularly solid in terms of research, as I found when I began looking into it.

It's for these reasons I'm not pro-pithing or stunning using electric shock; perhaps it's humane, perhaps it's not. Even if it's not, it prevents them showing it in most cases, which concerns me. Decapitation removes some of the doubt for me at least.

Best wishes, and also, greetings.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

Yeah you probably right. I guess causing the death, rather than the butchering is what bothers that kind of people.

 

[jaelbird]

It's for these reasons I'm not pro-pithing or stunning using electric shock; perhaps it's humane, perhaps it's not. Even if it's not, it prevents them showing it in most cases, which concerns me. Decapitation removes some of the doubt for me at least.

I agree, to the extent that the quickest, least stressful death is the most humane. As a research neuroscientist, I regard decapitation and pithing as equivalent in regards the possibility of the experience of being killed is realized by the animal - perhaps pithing is better at obliterating the experience but slower (involves more steps). For myself, I'm less confident of effecting a quick decapitation, so I think the killing method is best left up to the individual to decide what is the quickest way that they are confident of providing. I think for myself, a killing cone, a bleed immediately followed by pithing, might work best for me at first. I watched a video of a woman who slaughtered her chicken by placing the hen on her back in her lap, calming her and then quickly decapitated her by pulling off the head. It looked quite humane, but I think it would require more confidence and experience than I possess.