Euthanasia questions

[Pyxis]

Okay heres how it went:
It was a complete mess.
We sprayed a libral amount of the starting fluid(it had 40% ether which was the highest we could find) into the container and quickly placed her in and closed it. I came back out 45 minutes later to check. She was still alive(though in a hallucinogenic state) we ended up just using the broom stick method at that point but either we didnt do it right or it was just her nerves but she started flapping around like crazy and in the moment we used the hatchet which did her in. I dont know what went wrong.

When you kill them with cervical dislocation, they do flap around a bit after. So you might have gotten her with the broomstick method. Either way, I'm sorry you had to go through that; it's always hard to put down a bird and when it doesn't go perfectly right it makes it even harder.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Yeah, so gassing requires tight controls because of stuff like this. It's not suggested you gas an animal over 2lbs unless you can control, exactly, how much gas is going in.

It sounds like you did the broomstick method correctly. The flapping around is normal. When the body and brain are dying, everything fires off all at once. Every nerve and muscle moves, not because the animal is still alive but because it ISN'T. It has nothing controlling those processes any longer so they may run, make sounds, flap, kick, maybe violently even, but be completely dead at that point already.
As someone who has processed many animals, I can tell you that I can have an animal head off, skinned, guts removed, literally just a chicken breast sitting on my counter, an hour since it was actually "alive", and it may still be moving on it's own. It's a little disturbing the first few times you encounter it, but it's just chemical reactions.

I think you will find, in the future, that while processes used for turning animals into food using method like the cone may not be as aesthetically appealing as using home-made gas chambers, etc, they are more reliable and swift and the body's resulting motions are confined. By removing the entire head you not only cause a very sudden brain death from shock and severing of nerves, but also the brain bleeds out almost instantly dying from oxygen deprivation as well. Nobody processes an animal in a way that it suffers deliberately and most at-home meat production is very humane and contained and more suitable than most people imagine for even putting down a pet.

I'm sorry it didn't go well.

 

[aart]

Ooo Bummer...first kill is tough.
No matter how you kill them, that flapping is gonna happen...
...it's rather alarming and I've never quite gotten used to it.
I've never actually timed it, but 30-60 seconds would be my guess.

 

[Mrs. K]

If you go back, I did suggest wrapping the bird up. I agree, the bird was dead with the broomstick, just electricity leaking out of the muscles - makes them move a great deal.

One of the advantages of slitting their jugglers, is they just get very tired, but even then, they will have some jerks at the end.

It is tough, but often times it is worse to leave them alive.

Mrs K

 

[Helloworld]

I would say no. WD40 is a lubricant. Please - if this is a pet that you love, spend the extra bit and take her to a vet if you can't do it quickly and humanely. In my opinion, suffocating an animal is neither.

I live in Florida and have called 5 different counties for euthanasia at times. I never could find someone to do it. Half of them are farm vets and in their opinion chickens, ducks, and geese are not worth spending money on and told me to do it myself. I had a special goose and no one gave a damn about him. I do hope you can find one.

 

[bobbi-j]

I live in Florida and have called 5 different counties for euthanasia at times. I never could find someone to do it. Half of them are farm vets and in their opinion chickens, ducks, and geese are not worth spending money on and told me to do it myself. I had a special goose and no one gave a damn about him. I do hope you can find one.

Wow - you would think they’d at least put an animal down.
I honestly can’t say what our local vets would do, since we take care of our animals ourselves. I had a horse that needed to be euthanized, and the vet showed DH the best placement for the bullet. Said it was kinder than an injection because death would be instant.

 

[11mini]

Here is my method part of which I learned here - wrap the bird like mentioned above with its head exposed, set it on the ground facing away from you and “mount” it (hold it between your legs). Using both thumbs and index fingers in a circle, squeeze its neck hard and hold. Blood and oxygen to the brain are immediately stopped, and the bird won’t be able to flap as much and it will be over in under a minute.