The question was a method to euthanise. Not to kill.
Compare it with euthanising people with lots of pain from cancer who can’t get better. If the patient doesn’t want to suffer any longer (registered/discussed with their GP) they can have an overdose of morfine or other medicines that give a painless death.
The doctors don’t use guns or broomsticks because these methods seem very cruel and my guts tells me this is not painless.
Maihar, me and more people here like to know how they can euthanise a sick chicken in pain. Let it fall into a forever sleep. With all necessary instructions to make it work.
Is a freezer death really possible, painless and definite? A chicken wears a feather coat to keep themselves warm in winter. If a freezer death is humane and possible I like to know if the standard freezing temperature of a normal freezer (-18°C ) is okay or does it have to be much colder? I suppose it’s doable to put a sick chicken in an empty drawer of my freezer in the night if the -18°C is good. Next question. How much time is needed to let the chicken die in a standard freezer?
Quick tldr to add onto some very good info here.
I am an american/european settler (lol) who did grow up int he deep south of the united states haha! To euthanize an animal to me, like someone else here said, can be as simple as a quick bullet to the back of the head. The animal dies wither way, quickly and painlessly.
I freeze chicks mainly to feed to other animals. I have a /deep/ freezer but i know the average freezer. especially these days, can go veryvery cold.
When I am sleep euthanizing chicks, i tend to get them right when their having the most struggle/sleepiest/freshly hatched.
While their feathers can keep them warm in tempatures down to 30-20 degrees f, a freezer is designed to get ice and other things below that (-18c is VERY cold!!!) ickblock frozen in less than an hour.
When I have to freeze a chick it usually only takes a small amount of time for them to sleep from my experience. Usually only ome or two minutes, depending on size.
A baby chick out from under a heatlamp for just six minutes can die. Freezer is even quicker.
The thought here is the same way they mass prepare snakefood and other feeding foods where they also freeze them this way, inducing sleep from the cold (as animals will naturally sleep to try and conserve body heat) and then quietly passing.
I turn my freezer as low as itll go, sit with the chick while it gets frosty enough that ice crystals fly out when I open it (that fog in freezers is ice crystals.)
I say a prayer fir a quick painless sleep and death for each of them. Usually when i set em in, theyre already half out.
Close the door tight.
walk away.
come back in five minutes. You have to wait after they fall asleep to pass away.
I suggest doing some chores.
They may have their usually idle cheep or a few loud ones due to the darkness in the freezer. But it gets them so cold so fast they fall asleep before they can suffer.
Sorry my inital reponse may have startled some folks. If it is a beloved pet that youre putting down, and not a failure to thrive, at the end the choice is always up to you how you handle it.
**Edit!
Someone suggested CO2, Nitrogen. Please dont use that all at once. CO2 does cause the feelings of suffocation, even in animals. If you intend to gas an animal, you must induce it slowly at first so the brain can fallasleep, like a human. You dont suffocate humans getting CO2 all at once, you slowly begin filling the mask and steadily increase it.
If you intend to use nitrogen, its the same as above. Start slow, wait for sleep, then turn up to a leathal amount.
Nitrogen canisters are available in the EU, so you may have an easier time getting that, should you choose as such.
I read once about people makimg /gas chambers/ with baking soda and vinegar...Im not sure if this works /at all/ and frankly to me and my MOT chickens, im not a fan of that one!!
