sad topic............

[aidenbaby]

If I need to do it, I just read another thread someone brought up and that was to use baking soda and vinegar in a closed container with the animal. You can read the other thread to read how to do it. Anyway, I thought that was the most humane way I've seen yet.

 

[BeckyBird]

I never heard about the baking soda & vinegar method until today. I am going to use that method if I have to cull again.

One way we used to cull chicks, and other small animals--sad, but necessary sometimes....

We would put the animal/chick in a brown lunch bag, and gently fold it up. Then put the bag on the sidewalk, and drop a very heavy block or brick onto the bag. The animal never knew what happened, and it died instantly.

I used to do this when my father trapped mice and lizards in those sticky traps. I hated to see them suffer there in the glue, starving and dying of thirst. So, in the bag they would go, and in a second, the suffering would be all over.

 

[MoodyChicken]

Freezer, or placing them in a airtight box with vinegar and baking soda (creates CO2)

 

[SophieLain127]

If it isn't sick but injured coulding you get on some place like craigslist and see if anyone has a snake or other type of reptile that would be able to eat it. I know it may not be the most humane but at least two could benefit.

 

[fowltemptress]

Kitchen shears are extremely easy. I hate killing animals and am always in a position of having to do so, and one quick snip with the scissors is by far and away the easiest to do and lies lightest in the guilt section of my brain. The first time I used the method it went so quickly and easily that it took a moment for me to realize I had actually done the deed. Just be sure to have something to catch the head and blood.
I just have to add . . . I highly urge against freezing. I think there is a lot of misinformation out there regarding the "ease" of freezing to death.

 

[ilovechickens]

I know that this sounds kind of wimpy

, but I call my husband and have him do it. He hates to do it, but growing up on a farm it is part of life, it is being able to separate my motherly emotions and allow the job to get done. We have had to put down injured chickens with a sharp axe. Baby lambs with a bullet, sick calves with a bullet, I have not yet had to, I call my neighbors to kill the predator that I trapped that just had lunch on me by eating a chicken or two. I live on a farm and I can't even kill a mouse. I will let it run until my husband comes home. BUT, if I have an emergency I would probably drown it, (the chick) since they drown themselves so easily in the water. Another friend of mine has lived on a farm all of her life and she has her husband do it also. It is part of raising animals.

 

[newchickmom]

Snipping the head off is a very quick and humane way to cull. I work in a lab and some of the labs have to use rats and are required to dispose of them when they are finished with them. They are required to use this mini-gillatine(sp?) thing and the heads have to fall into liquid nitrogen(so the brain dies faster) Its an ASPCA thing.

Don't be sad, you did the best you knew how.

 

[Southernbelle]

Quote:
This is what I do for small birds like quail and chicks.

 

[Picky Chicky]

Quote:
I am a COMPLETE wimp when it comes time to "Dr. Kevorkian" any animal. This does the animal ZERO good, so I'm like you - I have to plead with DH to come do it. Now then, he didn't grow up with farm life in his blood, so then I feel double guilty that I'm making him do something that I know makes him feel bad.

It's a long story, so I'll just say that after our experience with "offing" a mouse weekend before last, I think we're going to have to think up something different.

 

[AHappychick]

Quote:
yes I agree about the freezing and this is why.

This winter I had a chick I needed to cull I put it in an zip lock and sucked all the air out, I then burried it in the snow. After 5-10 minutes I dug it back up only to see it peeping at me despiratly (this image has haunted me ever since) That is why I now snip off the heads, I know it is instant and the other way was not.

I have to say I was pretty offended when I first responded and people made comments or the

image as if I was wrong in being honest and trying to help.

This is a forum about chickens and culling is a part of that and if no one in the family is willing to do it then they should not have chooks because it is part of raising chickens all be it the worst part.