Axe/hatchet method of chicken dispatch - is it the most humane and cost-efficient method?

[Penpal]

We always hung the chicken by the legs, then cut the neck, just on one side. They would bleed out while alive with no complaining. They fall asleep, then die. I made cones out of leftover fabric.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Also, I remember your thread from a couple of months ago, contemplating getting CX in a suburban setting. I'm glad you decide to give it a try. I hope you keep us posted when you get your chicks this Fall.

Thanks! I'm glad for all the advice everyone on BYC has given to help me get to this point. I think I am mentally prepared to do it. I will definitely share my experience when I get them!

 

[RiverOtter]

I'm not sure what cone method everyone is thinking is complicated or takes a long time?? I must be missing something. When I had a cone, I had it nailed to a beam with a bucket under it. I put the chicken in, the head and neck come out the bottom. I took a machete and decapitated it. Exactly the "hatchet" method, but no fussing with stumps and nails and aim and flailing, just whack and done. Honest truth, I usually wrap the head in a paper towel as soon as the bird is in the cone - it never sees anything and I don't have a head staring at me from the bucket.

Lacking a cone, and having enough hay twine to macrame the entire farm, I take a loop of hay twine, put one end through the other, put it around the chicken's ankles (individually if it's a large bird) and hang the twine from a hook on a beam and do the same thing, but without a cone. There's not a huge amount of flapping, but if it disturbs you, cones are easy to make. Before they were a thing you could buy, people used old traffic cones and corners of sturdy burlap feed sacks before that.

 

[RiverOtter]

Wow! You guys are blood-thirsty!
Why not just...

"Grab the legs with your left hand, and the neck with your right hand so that it protrudes through the two middle fingers and the head is cupped in the palm. Push your right hand downward and turn it so the chicken’s head bends backward. Stop as soon as you feel the backbone break, or you will pull the head off." - The John Seymour way.

That's the way I was shown a long time ago, and it's less of a strain on the chicken or the person who has to do it!

Do we really need all that blood, cones, Spanish inquisition stuff, etc?

Blood thirsty? Spanish inquisition? And then you go on about breaking a chicken's neck by hand, as if that's impossible to screw up and have the poor thing suffer. I don't know about you, my chickens mostly instinctively panic when picked up - you kill them scared? They calm down after a bit, and cones are very humane for the bird. Any bird that is head-down for more than a few seconds goes into stupor. They go limp, breath deeply and are aware of very little so long as the head stays down.

I think it all comes back to the advice that @Ridgerunner always gives -- the best way is the way that works best for you.

@RiverOtter -- when you machete the chicken in the cone, do you just sweep the machete through like a sword stroke, or is the bird hanging near a wooden wall/board that you smack the machete into? You holding on the head as you do this?

The bird is hanging on a wooden wall/beam that I smack the machete into. My machete was $7 at the tractor supply, easy to sharpen and there is no missing with it. No, I don't hold the head, or have to, after a couple of seconds head down, they are relaxed and the neck extends. A very rare bird won't do this immediately, if you hold the head down gently with it's eyes covered for just a second, it will go into stupor. ~ I also do this if a bird needs to be doctored in any way. They wake up and don't seem to remember anything after you turn them right side up again.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

After many different trials and errors (regrettably), I've settled on this method: I use a killing cone and PVC cutters. It's fast, no bruising or broken wings, the bird suffers as little as possible, mess is contained, little risk of injuries to myself - and I don't make mistakes.

I grip the bird's beak to hold the head steady, then one FIRM clip with the cutters below the jaw area, and it's done. I have full control of the cutters and the bird.

I bought the biggest PVC cutter I could find that did NOT have a ratchet grip, and some extra blades. (I worried that the ratchet would take a few squeezes to cut through - mine has a spring-loaded handle that closes with one squeeze.) 1-5/8" size, about $15.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-PVC-Pipe-Cutter/5003750421

 

[bobbi-j]

DH uses the tried and true hatchet and stump method. Once the head is off, the bird goes into a 5-gallon bucket until it’s done flopping. I don’t have to chase it around the yard that way, and the meat doesn’t bruise. I’ve never had to kill my chickens because DH does it, but if I did, I would use a cone and a sharp instrument to lop the head off. I am not strong enough or coordinated enough to attempt the hatchet method. I’d likely injure or remove some of my own parts.

 

[NatJ]

Oh, I see. So these will cut off the entire head as well if the chicken is in a cone?

Looks risky to me because they look so small. I expected something bigger. Not sure I would trust those to give me a clean beheading in one try. They look excellent for butchering though.

You could test them on the neck of an already-dead chicken (killed by whatever other method you like). Then you would know how well it works with your size of chickens, and your hand strength. I would test it on a neck that still has feathers, rather than after plucking, because sometimes the feathers make things cut differently.

 

[Geena]

Good to know! Maybe we'll have to try that next time around. I'm just so scared to try something that could result in an unclean kill. But you guys seem to say these do the job pretty well.

As long as you give it a good squeeze and don't hesitate it's absolutely foolproof. I think Molpet does it the other way around from me, but I hook the U shaped bottom just under and behind the head, their neck nestles in there very nicely.
I don't use mine all the time, only when doing a few birds by myself, and I also use it for cutting PVC but in 6 or 7 years it's never needed to be sharpened. They do make a version that had replaceable blades too.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Wow, it sounds like that takes some precision! Thanks for sharing.

That makes me wonder, could I maybe tie the chicken's legs to a string while I have it on the table (before decapitation), so I can let it hang to bleed out afterwards? I'm imagining the string tied high above a bucket, maybe to a rafter in my garage, long enough that I can have the chicken on the table off to the side, and then move it over after decapitation so it hangs over the bucket. Does that seem like it would work?

A String? No.

Small dia cord or rope (1/8"), probably.

I have a (likely silicone) not very stretchy rubber-band like thing I use to wrap the legs before hanging from the scale. Even a 14# Cx is no strain, even when it flaps around. String or twine? I'd not risk it.

Something like this:

Bungie loops may work too. I just like mine (came in a cheap package of assorted bungies) because is washable/bleachable.

Plenty of people do tie the legs. It just seems like extra effort to me to tie and untie knots.

 

[Morrigan]

I wonder if I could use an axe to decapitate, and then put the headless chicken in the homemade cone to bleed out into a bucket or bin of some sort.

This is exactly what we do. Have the cone, right next to the stump and make sure you have a firm grip on the legs when you bring the axe down.