Can BB gun kill chickens and...?

[LR Gamefarm]

yes i have used bb/pellet guns to kill chickens but you have to have a high powered one to kill a chicken or a cat i suggest a break barrel pellet gun

 

[MaxxAmmo]

I had read that using an axe and severing the spinal cord tightens the feathers and makes hand plucking a harder job. Anyone know if this is true? Cutting a major artery in the neck was the recommended method in this article.

 

[LR Gamefarm]

i don't know but how i do it is i place the chicken on a stump with the neck on the stump then just chop the head off right in the middle then just hang it up by its legs and let the blood run out

 

[okherp]

.410 are just about the most expensive shotgun shell currently. 12-ga is the cheapest, but very powerful at close range. Shotguns would just be messy, especially for one of your former pets. I would vote BB gun (pump), pellet gun, or .22 for the kill job. Just put the muzzle directly against the head (point blank), no room for errors/misses.

 

[MusketeerinFla]

A good Harrington and Richardson single shot shot gun is best. The 410 would do the trick, but a 20 gauge would be more useful in the country...home defense, hunting, ect. MiF

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

If you aren't that good a shot, forget the pellet/bb gun or 22. Get a shotgun. You can get bird shot or buck shot, you don't have to worry about getting up close, just aim it pretty much at your target. A shotgun sprays a group of pellets in a pattern varies due to distance and the load you use, so you essentially have many 'bb s' in a cluster. You can fire at a target to see your spread and what distance you'd like to be, and yeah you have something for home protection after. Essentially you can't miss

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

I think the OP can do what they want to do which is dispatch a failing bird from time to time with a good BB gun. A BB/Pellet gun is more than enough for quickly dispatching a chicken. A point blank shot will do the job everytime. A daisy red ryder type BB gun is not powerful enough. A more powerful one is necessary to do the job quickly every time. As others have suggested a pump type or a break open one are usually adequate.

 

[speckledhen]

I hate to say it, but it's quite unsettling to shoot a bird point blank in the back of the head and moments later, to see it standing up looking dazed. ((((shudder)))) The axe is definitely more final.

 

[akashia26]

.17 calaber pistol. smaller than a .22 but with about the same about of powder. a .22 with rat shot gives you a little more room so you don't have to almost press the gun to the head. .410 gives you even more range and less chance of a miss. i would suggest #6 bird and rabbit shot, or #4 turkey shot. all of these will work for small animals. the .410 is decent of home defense too.

a good CO2 pellet pistol will kill a chicken if shot in the head, anything larger and it gets iffy.

 

[rikithemonk]

This thread was started in 2011, but since I just purchased a BB gun. Ill put my 2 cents in. I live in the middle of a city, so shooting a rifle for any reason other than self defense would be a major crime for me, and going after a raccoon with a shovel isn't going to work. So after some thought, I purchased a electric fence and a Daisy BB gun as a added layer of defense for my coop. After firing both BB's and pellets I no longer consider the BB gun to be a toy. The model I purchased can be pumped ten times and maxes out at 880 Feet per second. That's over twice the speed of the cheap BB guns. It will send a pellet completely through a soup can so fast that the can doesn't even move. In fact, during target practice I thought I missed every shot until I went over to check the can. I never missed once, the can simply never moved. Its my opinion that my Daisy 880 can kill a dog, chicken, squirrel, or raccoon. HOWEVER, I seriously doubt that it would be a fast or humane death. The American FBI did a study which determined that death from firearms is the result of blood loss, not trauma. It stated that in the shootings that they reviewed, wide shallow wounds or thin deep wounds would have a high survival rate and a longer term of consciousness. While deep wide wounds tended to be quickly fatal. The BB or pellet is good enough to stop a raccoon attack in a way that would kill the animal. But the wound would not cause a humane or quick death.

The right to die advocacy groups have published a paper showing terminally ill patients how to build a suicide machine that would give them a fast painless death. If I ever had to put down an injured animal, I would employ that method. The method is gassing. Its a Party store tank of helium, a plastic hose, and a plastic bag. Helium is one of only a few gasses that does not cause a choking or feeling of suffocation. If you stepped into a room full of helium, you would never know it. You would simply black out. You would breath normally until you simply drop like a stone. This sounds better than drowning, of cutting the throat or stomping on a broomstick to break the neck.

(Don't confuse helium with the co2 technique snake enthusiasts use to gas mice. carbon dioxide is a far different gas than helium. it does cause the feeling of suffocation and the mice do panic. Unlike helium, carbon dioxide is a death very similar to drowning.)

Riki