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- #71
SweetieChicken234
Chirping
- Jun 9, 2023
- 69
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Oh he didn't slip out. My husband had 1 foot on the stick and my foot was on the other side. I felt him start the flapping like instantly after I felt the neck pop. I think I was startled and stopped pulling. The head was nearly off but my husband took the ax to finish it. That bird was gone instantly. It was unbelievable how fast he was gone. It's so fast.
Experience will make this process smoother. For a first time I think this went well.
My usual method of dispatching is cutting the spine at the neck with a pair of heavy duty long blade metal cutters, while the chicken is in a kill cone. That's pretty quick and convenient, but I'd heard/read so much about the broomstick method, that I decided to try it. I recently dispatched 5 large cockerels using this method, hoping to practice on them until I get it right, and I hated it. I hated that in order to step on the broom with both feet, I had to press down on it hard enough to cut the bird's airflow. Even if it wasn't long between stepping and pulling, it was long enough for me to see it open its mouth and gasp for air, which was unsettling. Then, with almost every pull, either the broomstick came out from under my feet, or the rooster's head came out from under the broomstick. I was on a hard flat surface (concrete floor), and made sure to step so the broomstick is in the middle of my foot, but maybe I have small feet? Maybe I pull too hard? Most of the birds I had to reposition and do a second time, because it didn't work well enough the first (you can tell that it worked when the head dangles freely). After you fail the first time, the bird starts screaming this very particular death scream, which is upsetting. On the last cockerel I finally figured out one thing that helped, wish I'd thought of that sooner - it works MUCH better if you pull the body forward, in the direction that its head is facing, as opposed to straight up! That snapped the neck instantly and nothing slipped out of position. Even when done right though, yet another aspect of it that I don't like is that, in my 5 cases at least, I couldn't get the head to come off no matter how hard I pulled, so I still had to cut the throat for the blood to drain. Easier said than done on an animal that's already thrashing and flailing! Getting it into the cone in this state is a battle, trying to reach up from the bottom and find the head, to pull it through the hole and cut, is another battle. By the time I have secured it in the cone, found the head, and cut, the blood has started coagulating and forming a plug in the throat, obstructing the flow of the remaining blood. I had no idea it happened so quickly! So it took longer to drain out, and didn't drain as fully as when cutting happens right away. There was still blood inside, in the organs, in the meat, globs at the neck, which was messy and annoying. So I much much prefer securing the bird in the cone first, then killing it by cutting - either the whole head off, or just the spine (which still opens the skin for draining), or the classic slicing the throat, whatever - the point is, you are doing it on a restrained bird that isn't thrashing, and draining begins right away while the blood is fresh. Trying to drain once the bird is dead and flopping is a PITA, and apparently the little time it takes you to wrangle it and cut, is enough to complicate the draining and make gutting an annoying mess. I'll be going back to my trusty old cutters and the cone.
