Humane ways of killing our meat birds

[Barred Rocker]

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Wow, that's brilliant. I never would have thought of that.

 

[dancingbear]

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I don't do that because I don't want the meat bruised, or the wings broken, and they can end up under cars, under the shed, or out in the road. I hang them upside down and cut the throat on both sides.

 

[dancingbear]

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These might be helpful:
Slaughter:

Evisceration:

Really, if you take minute and see where to cut, the bare spot just under the jaw, it's hard to miss. It's just the neck just under the jaw, one good slice on each side.

back of head
....cut\\ /cut
.......beak

You want to cut where the bare spot is, feathers are surprisingly hard to cut, and will quickly dull your knife. If you watch the slaughter video, you'll see how easy it is.

 

[Jmurcks]

Quote:
These might be helpful:
Slaughter:

Evisceration:

Really, if you take minute and see where to cut, the bare spot just under the jaw, it's hard to miss. It's just the neck just under the jaw, one good slice on each side.

back of head
....cut\\ /cut
.......beak

You want to cut where the bare spot is, feathers are surprisingly hard to cut, and will quickly dull your knife. If you want the slaughter video, you'll see how easy it is.

Thanks! That does help!

 

[mountainpridefarm]

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I have heard of this method in rabbits but I though with the much more delicate legs that the point of breaking would be much quicker on the legs thus causing more suffering.

 

[dichotomymom]

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Wow, that's brilliant. I never would have thought of that.

Thanks! It was my Dad's method after I had been breaking the neck and then cutting off the head (much longer and more traumatic).

 

[hankus]

Last batch I held the feet and wing tips, and they held their own head away from me. Axe or hatchet seems to work well. Spin seemed to work when we were cleaning a whole coop with several people. My great grandfather used the handle part of his cane to cull mean ones. I'm told that it worked very well.

 

[zaylinda]

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I have heard of this method in rabbits but I though with the much more delicate legs that the point of breaking would be much quicker on the legs thus causing more suffering.

Yeah, he used it for rabbits too, when we had those. Works very well.
We always butchered them out ourselves afterward, and I must say I've never seen a broken leg from this method. What with the pressure of the snap being centered on a sharply bent neck, it breaks very easily, whereas the legs are holding the bird's weight hanging straight down - in a more natural position.
When done correctly, it's instant painless death. However, an amateur can definitely cause the bird pain by flinching or hesitating and not snapping down hard enough to kill, so maybe not the best method for someone just learning.

 

[quercus21]

As soon as I put one in the cone, I slit it's necks. 1 pull on either side, no sawing back and forth. You do it fast. I'll transport them to the process station, 4 to a crate. All 4 are done at once.
Kaj

 

[jaku]

As long as you aren't torturing or intentionally prolonging it- do it however you're comfortable with. When the bird is dead, what happened in the last couple of seconds prior aren't going to matter at all. Whether you chop off the head, cut the throat, run it over with your car, or throw a grenade at it, the bottom line is that it's dead. It would have PREFERRED to live out it's life and die of natural causes, but you'd get pretty hungry waiting for that to happen. Everyone has different opinions as to the best way to kill them, but they all lead to the same conclusion.