HELP!!!!! Mean Rooster

[aplynn]

I have a rooster whom unfortunatly is a wee bit OVER PROTECTIVE of his ladies. It is at a point where I can't touch the hens at all (and they LOVE to sit in my lap outside and chill with me or anyone willing to let them sit with them) without him violently attacking me. My 5 year old son can't go near the coop at all and my oil delivery guy, UPS driver, and now as of last night the local pizza delivery driver will not get out of their vehicles at my house if he is out, they honk in the driveway. This roo is gonna hurt someone,

SOOOOO, after he ripped my leg and arm apart yesterday my hubby has decided that Mr. Roo dies today. MY PROBLEM, we have never culled a chicken before and I do not want him to suffer. I need the fastest, easiest, and most humane method of culling a chicken. I do not like him, but I am human, and I do not want him to suffer.

HELP

 

[Pork Pie]

lop off his neck with an axe - immediate and no suffering

CT

 

[marlo101freddy1]

whack his head off with an axe!

 

[Steampunked]

We had a very mean rooster who decided that everyone but me had to die. He didn't fly at me - but he got a hankering for the liver of small kids...so he had to go!

He was delicious - but as a barnyard rooster we definitely cooked him up as cock au vin or he would have been inedible.

The flapping and carrying on after death is going to happen no matter which method you use - chickens evolved from therapods, and they're pretty dinosaurian even now. Their nervous systems are designed to keep them going despite appalling injuries, and they really don't fall over flat until there's just nothing left. The brain can have checked out five minutes before, but the body won't know it.

I'm a small person iRL and I use the broomstick method (you can google it) as it's fast, instant, and not bloody. Every single time I've had to put a chicken down, I've used it, freaked out because the wings were flapping, tried it again, then the head's, uh, come off. Because every single time, I broke the neck in one go and the bird was instantly dead. It's pretty foolproof, and it's not upsetting for you or the chicken.

That is, it's not upsetting until you do it twice out of a need to be 'completely humane' and are then wearing a chicken head.

If it helps at all, birds are descended from Coelurosauria - so visualise yourself versus a velociraptor...

(Not that hard to do with an angry rooster!)

 

[CrazyTalk]

I figured it wouldn't have been like this since they all grew up together since day 1

IMO, growing up hens and roosters together has a low success probability. The reason for this is that the roosters are sexually mature (and bigger than the hens will ever be) at about 3-4 months, and the hens won't even start to sexually mature for another two months.

So you've got all these horny cockerels chasing around unreceptive pullets, beating them up trying to mate with them, etc. There's no way for them to interact correctly, so they learn all sorts of bad habits.

I've had much better luck with roosters raised in flocks of adult hens - they get put in their place until the hens can't do it anymore, and then the hens happily submit.

 

[aplynn]

lop off his neck with an axe - immediate and no suffering

CT

That is what I thought my husband seems to think just cutting the jugular and letting it bleed to death I told him absolutely NOT gonna happen.... I watched a video of someone doing that and the chicken was most deff feeling what was going on and I cant do that

 

[bobbi-j]

It's not pretty, but a hatchet and a stump is the fastest, and in my opinion most humane, way of killing a chicken. One sure swing and it's over in seconds. But, there is flopping and blood. Another quick way is a killing cone and a good, sharp knife. There will still be blood but that and the flopping will be a bit more contained. It might help you to mosey over to the meat bird section of the forum to read more about that.

Good for you for keeping your little one, yourself and others safe.

 

[vsmenagerie]

We use the hatchet and wood block method. We have the same problem as you and are taking care of him today. Not only is he attacking us but he's gotten way too rough with the hens and I found one with a gash on her side. I tried giving him time to calm down as he's only a year old but now it seems my calmer boy feeds off this ones aggression and that just won't do.

 

[Mrs. K]

Personally, it takes quite a bit more arm strength than I have to control the hatchet. However, your husband can probably handle it. Pound two nails firmly in the stump about an inch apart, so that you can hook the head in that and stretch the bird out slightly so as to hold the head in place, and swing the hatchet so that it lands just below the head.

I do cut the jugular with a very sharp razor blade. If you have ever been cut like that, there is very little pain, they just get very tired and gently go to sleep, without quite as much flopping as with the hatchet method.

It is one thing to KNOW they are dead, but the expression "running like a chicken with it's head cut off" is not just a metaphor.

Mrs K

 

[aart]

I use a cone and jugular cut to kill and bleed birds to eat.....
.....humane can be subjective, you are still going to be killing something, it's not easy and there will be lots of movement even after clinically dead.