DIY HUMANE way to Kill Slaughter Chicken (Stun-kill, Gas)

[galanie]

Dear Galanie,

I don't understand what you have against gassing.  Carbon monoxide poisoning is described as Invidious, because one dies from it after becoming unconsciuos and without realising that one is slowly dying!   Why do you think a slow death is worse than a quick one if the slow is painless and the quick painfful ?

With respect, Neal.

SmokinChick said it all:

Neal,  It seems to me that you are looking for reasons not to kill chickens.  There is no "Easy" button on this task.  You will need to get dirty somewhere along the line.  I can safely say that no one enjoys the deed and we all wish there were an easier quicker manner of doing this.  But, just do it.  Chicken should really be bled out.  I don't see that happening with gas.  And I want things quick and easy.  Not prolonged with setup and wrapping in towels.  It is a chicken and its life is in my hands.  Speed and effeciency of motion is where it is at.  Cut the neck arteries and let them bleed.
And this lead slug to drop inside a pipe, really?  Just step on their head and crush it.  Done.
Or is that the personel involvment you do not want to deal with.  Or pay for processing.  By doing that you are not encouraging inhumane treatment.  You are getting meat.  Nothing more, nothing less.
Best wishes

As did Beekissed and everyone who posted before this one. It's alive and you're making it dead. There just isn't a perfect way to do it. We can get so tied up in being "humane" and if we're honest with ourselves, it's all about making the person feel good about it, not the chicken.

 

[Hellinahelmet]

Read the first several posts by the OP and some others on here. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed on here but I'm going to say my bit anyway. There really is no completely painless and humane way to kill something that I alive. This guy was talking about gassing his chickens then decided that would be too loud so the gas had to be silenced. Are you kidding me? Seems almost troll like. Giving the benefit of the doubt about that, I will say this: if you raised the bird (or other animal for that matter) with the intention of killing and processing, you must be mentally capable to do the deed. Dying is not an enjoyable experience. Organs fail and illness takes its toll. Trauma causes pain. Fear is its own monster. Do what you can reasonably do to harvest your meat birds or cull your flock. You don't need to numb and sedate the birds. Don't torture them, but so long as your method is relatively quick the bird won't suffer. If you cannot then have someone else do the job. You will just have to trust that it's done right. If you cannot handle that then perhaps you should consider a vegan diet and/or new hobby. I don't intend to be insensitive but I am realistic and practical and reading about gassing your birds through a silenced delivery system so as not to stress them is ludicrous at best. Just my two cents.

 

[Yukonchick]

I check them out. The last time I raised chickens, I just lopped their heads off. Don't think any thing would feel pain with that method.

 

[Yukonchick]

Lol! Ya I agree with you. Also people got to realize that you want all that blood out of the bird before the heart stops. Blood, I think makes the meat taste yucky. Thats why snaring wild rabbits is not the best way to get rabbit meat. Very wild tasting with all that blood in the meat.

 

[Oregon Blues]

I wonder if meat killed by carbon monoxide poisoning is safe to eat. After all, coroners can easily identify carbon monoxide poisoning, so it is doing something to change the meat.

I would not eat meat from an animal that was sedated. Whatever drug used is going to be in the meat. I don't need to be tranquilized in order to eat fried chicken.

 

[Beekissed]

I don't know...it seems like it could have real market value on the street nowadays!

If they can use bath salts, why not chicken.....?

 

[LoneStarHen]

As the published poultry articles and other welfare agency recommended (Animal Welfare Approved), I did try the carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, argon method. It was not cheap to implement, but It works beautifully and as the articles in the poultry research papers indicated, it did not affect the quality of the meat. The birds were not overly stressed. "(Pending further research that will undoubtedly continue to refine and improve knowledge and understanding of the procedure, many gas mixtures currently provide higher welfare, including argon and nitrogen with less than 2% residual oxygen, and any mixture of argon, nitrogen, or other inert gases with up to 30% CO2)"

I've seen quite a few posts in this thread indicating that the folks who are proponents for gassing have problems with death and slaughtering. I think that is jumping to a judgmental conclusion that is NOT the case. It has nothing to do with killing or not killing something. It's about evolving to better methods. Not only is do I own chickens as a hobby, my career is in animal welfare. I spend quite a bit of time reading scientific papers, welfare guidelines, inspecting facilities, conforming to regulations, yadda yadda. The CAK (Controlled Atmosphere Killing) method is not for everyone (it requires equipment that may not be easy for the small farm or backyard chicken owners can afford, or wants to maintain), but is simply presented as an evolving alternative method that research shows may be more humane. Is that wrong?

I work in animal research -welfare specifically, and research animals are heavily regulated in how animals should be handled and killed. That being said, food animals, whether on a small farm or large commercial operation should be afforded the same humane regulations as our research animals. They are physiologically NO different whether they are used in research or food, so why is it that the research animals are so heavily regulated? Some major producers are moving toward CAK.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/business/22chicken.html?_r=0

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/slaughter/research/welfare_birds_slaughter.html

Carbon dioxide is NOT humane by itself.
Carbon Monoxide is TOXIC and changes the meat. - it's probably quite dangerous to the operator as well.

 

[galanie]

Ok so I'm not sure, what are you saying exactly? That the everyday farmer implement the carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, argon method? Isn't that just a whole lot of nonsense when we can just cut their throats and have dinner? Or are we more worried about the welfare of those we raise ourselves than the ones we buy at the store and eat every day?

Editing this to include that just because something has been stated in the NY Times or any other paper doesn't make it Gospel. Nor if it's in the Humane Society's literature. I have delved deeper into what humans have experienced. If you read this whole thread you will discover that cutting the jugular results in a "going to sleep" peaceful death. Decapitation is something that humans are aware of. Gassing? Now we're getting just plain silly. If you have to go through such crazy things to be able to "off" a creature, just be a vegetarian. No, I'm not joking.

Unlike others, I do indeed think humans and other mammals and birds experience life ending things similarly. The difference is, humans can tell other humans what they felt. Or in the case of decapitation, signal it in some way.

 

[Beekissed]

Owning chickens as a hobby is a little different than actually raising them for food and on a budget, which is why we raise them for food. Spending time reading papers about killing is also different than doing the actual killing of chickens in your yard for years and monitoring the speed and efficacy of the "less evolved" methods.

My backyard isn't a laboratory and controlled experiments just aren't the same as real life situations. In every practical sense of killing animals in the backyard, the methods for doing so have not "evolved" for thousands of years simply because it has not needed to do so.

It has no practical application in small animal husbandry setups. It may sound nice, but it's not practical nor logical to go through all these elaborate rituals to make something dead. Dead is dead and you can't get quicker than taking the head off the body to make something dead. When they are dead they feel no pain, thus it would seem this is very quick and humane enough to serve the purpose.

While folks are still fooling around with tiny gas chambers in their evolved methods, the animal could be dead and gone by then. I still think these methods are more for the person than anything to do with easing the animal into death.

 

[galanie]

Owning chickens as a hobby is a little different than actually raising them for food and on a budget, which is why we raise them for food.  Spending time reading papers about killing is also different than doing the actual killing of chickens in your yard for years and monitoring the speed and efficacy of the "less evolved" methods. 

My backyard isn't a laboratory and controlled experiments just aren't the same as real life situations.  In every practical sense of killing animals in the backyard, the methods for doing so have not "evolved" for thousands of years simply because it has not needed to do so.

It has no practical application in small animal husbandry setups.  It may sound nice, but it's not practical nor logical to go through all these elaborate rituals to make something dead.  Dead is dead and you can't get quicker than taking the head off the body to make something dead.  When they are dead they feel no pain, thus it would seem this is very quick and humane enough to serve the purpose. 

While folks are still fooling around with tiny gas chambers in their evolved methods, the animal could be dead and gone by then.  I still think these methods are more for the person than anything to do with easing the animal into death. 

 

Absolutely. The oddball gassing and other stuff is to ease the feelings of the human, not to ease the animal's suffering one bit! The Humane Society and many other animal advocate organizations have the aim in mind to put the animal above the human in hierarchy. This is one screwed up state of mind. I've personally been hounded by a member of this "Humane" way of life by someone who was outraged that I should give up an animal that ended the life of a pet that I valued above all others. And still cry just to think about. Humane? Really?? I don't think so.

In restrospect I should have just shot the offending creature and buried it. By taking the "humane" route I opened myself to abuse.