shoot in head to kill rather than axe method?

[Sara S]

Yeah I hear ya, I'd probably go with my manchette rather than axe if I had to do it right now. You definitely need an arm for it.

Definitely don’t have one strong enough to kill my own chicken. I would be so shaky I’d end up just crushing her skull instead on accident. I feel like culling chicks is jsut easier mentally and physically, one snip and nothing but with big chickens it’s work.

 

[raingarden]

We'd catch hell for shooting a firearm around here so I use a pellet gun. Benjamin variable pump .177 with a peep sight.

The trouble is, our birds are free range and almost never handled. The first hand to ever touch it is likely the one doing the plucking. So, you can't just walk over and pick one up. You can walk over and feed it from three feet away but that's about the limit of their comfort zone. So, if you want to cull or harvest a bird it has to be either shot or trapped. You only get one chance with the trap and if the bird gets wise to the trap then shooting is the only option left. Sometimes a bird will get wise to the gun too. From then on, it's challenging long range shots only and you're working at the practical limit of a pellet gun.

Two strange things about shooting a chicken with a pellet gun which has little report. If you shoot a pullet or cockerel and it starts flopping around the rooster will run over and try to mate with it. How weird is that? Second, if you shoot a chick walking around with the clutch behind a hen, the hen will turn around and look but then just go about her business. It's as though a chick that suddeny falls over dead is not a chick at all in her eyes and doesn't elicite the usual rampage for messing with them. I seldom need to cull a chick, but think you could just sit there and pick them off one at a time if need be.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

My husband has dispatched the two hens that have needed it ( they were sick and suffering) with an air rifle point blank to the head. It worked fine. He put several shots into them to make sure but I knew it was done with the first shot. I doubt it would work as easily with healthy young birds. I'd feel more comfortable having those birds contained in a cone etc and using a knife. Currently I give away any surplus cockerels to a family who eats them so I haven't directly had to deal with it.

 

[Painted Calls]

I use a .22 to the back of the head. I swaddle the bird in a cloth, lay on the ground and talk to it the entire time. Very calm, quick, easy way to go.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The trouble is, our birds are free range and almost never handled. The first hand to ever touch it is likely the one doing the plucking. So, you can't just walk over and pick one up.

Yeah, we all have different circumstances. That's why we have to do different methods. If your chickens sleep where you can pick them off of the roost at night and put them in a cage until the next day you have a lot of possible ways to dispatch them. If yours are in a coop or run and you have the health you can find a way to catch them. Maybe a fish net, that's what I do now. But if yours truly free range and sleep where you can't get to them your options are limited.

When I was a kid on the farm ours totally free ranged. Mom would tell me to get here a chicken for dinner after they were already out. My only option was to chase one down. No fish net, bare handed. I was a farm kid in great shape and did it. There is no way I could even think of doing that these days.

 

[sandburRanch]

Catching a chicken , anyone ever made a chicken hook of #9 wire ? Remove the head using a cone and quality Loppers .

Fish nets are handy to catch and release a bird that discovered your living quarters when a door was standing open for a moment .

 

[Molpet]

Catching a chicken , anyone ever made a chicken hook of #9 wire ? Remove the head using a cone and quality Loppers .

Fish nets are handy to catch and release a bird that discovered your living quarters when a door was standing open for a moment .

I have a commercial made leg poultry hook I bought used. Sometimes they manage to get out of it and limp. I use lopper on turkeys and pipe cutter for chicken. Cut up kitty litter jug for chicken cone.

 

[McChooky]

I culled some cockrels that were pretty hard to catch in the middle of the day. I resorted to the .22. I'll spare the details, but after the first BANG the rest knew what was up and it was Game On!
In the future I'll have them confined from the night before and use a killing cone and a knife. It will make their trip to freezer camp much less traumatic on me and them.

Mick

Frightening the birds by shooting them isn't a good idea if you care what it tastes like.https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-scared-animals-taste-worse

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I use a .22 to the back of the head. I swaddle the bird in a cloth, lay on the ground and talk to it the entire time. Very calm, quick, easy way to go.

This might be a better way for me too when I get my own place. We use loppers to break the neck, but it very methodical and cold, and I know the birds dislike the last few minutes which makes it worse for me

 

[raingarden]

I would rather be unexpectedly shot in the head than sent to the guillotine.