Struggling with killing a chicken

[JacinLarkwell]

Don't thin! They're not laying because they're spending their energy on staying warm, surviving the winter. The daylight hours they need, to keep laying, have shortened. It's seasonal, completely natural for them to not lay during the season where it would not be best for chicks to survive, if they were laying in the wild (chickens actually are a wild bird species that has been domesticated). The time for the chicks will be in the spring, for them to start laying again. This is completely NORMAL! Yea, they're being free-loaders for now, but this is common. So, don't thin your flock, thinking you can add later on, and then have to wait for the new chicks to come of laying age, which, again, would put you in a shortened laying season before they become free-loaders again for the winter.

Older birds are often thinned because they don't lay as well as younger birds.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

So, don't thin your flock

Subtraction is part of chicken math.

 

[goldenyears]

I’ve successfully “reformed” a couple roosters/cockerels but usually just cull them upon signs of aggression. My 2-1/2 year old granddaughter is with me and I can’t tolerate bad behavior that could lead to her getting hurt. I have about 20 roosters spread out among the different coops. Culling for behavior and food happens regularly here and it gets easier over time. I built a covered processing station to go with my scalder and “washing machine” de-featherer to make the task efficient. As they say, the chickens here have a good life - and one bad day.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

While it would, of course, have been better to cull a problem cockerel/rooster in a planned and intentional fashion, it sounds like this fellow was asking for trouble and ended up getting it.

The need to deal with excess and/or aggressive males is one of the downsides of raising chickens.

As one of our respected members frequently advises, if you can't bear to eat him then plant a rosebush on top of him.

I love you 3KB

 

[raingarden]

I’ve successfully “reformed” a couple roosters/cockerels but usually just cull them upon signs of aggression. My 2-1/2 year old granddaughter is with me and I can’t tolerate bad behavior that could lead to her getting hurt. I have about 20 roosters spread out among the different coops. Culling for behavior and food happens regularly here and it gets easier over time. I built a covered processing station to go with my scalder and “washing machine” de-featherer to make the task efficient. As they say, the chickens here have a good life - and one bad day

I would like to have it together enough to make a processing station. Please show a pitcher of your washing machine de-featherer. What a lurury!.

 

[CNJ]

If the roosters grow up together, they will work things out. However, once you separate them for more than a month and put them back together, it will get ugly.
I have raised crazy roosters that bite and I have raised some that like to sneak attack my leg. This type of behavior is unacceptable and often times related to their blood line character traits. The reason I say this is because I have a line of good roosters that don't bite and their good characteristics are passed on to the next generation.
You need to get rid of the man eaters, they have the psycho path gene.

 

[Dizzee474]

So he was fighting other roosters... And you smacked him with a pole, in the head, as punishment, and he struggled and died?

I can see why you feel guilty. Never act in anger towards an animal. What even was the situation? How many roosters, to how many hens? Were they introduced properly? Was he injuring them, drawing blood?

I'm sure you were trying to protect your other roosters. But this wasnt handled correctly.
I'm sorry he died

I agree - you HAVE to introduce a new member of the group properly - at night after everyone has 'gone to bed' - roosters WILL establish or challenge the head Roo - always.
there ARE ways to get them to "get along" - we have two "runs" with 25 roos, it is more than I like but hatched way too many roosters this season. they sometimes challenge each other but no blood or anything. hitting with a POLE is very excessive. A "time out" would have been better

 

[kodster]

Older birds are often thinned because they don't lay as well as younger birds.

I get that.... when I wrote the comment, I didn't realize that they were already 6 years old, but depending on conditions, they could still be laying, just not as much as new layers. I won't do it, myself. Not because they're not producing, but because I'm human... would you want to be euthanized because you're no longer being productive to society? Just me.

 

[goldenyears]

I would like to have it together enough to make a processing station. Please show a pitcher of your washing machine de-featherer. What a lurury!.

Here’s some of my setup. I have a cone made from a 5 gallon bucket attached to a nearby tree where the chicken is dispatched. Then it goes into the scalder at 170 degrees (this temperature was settled upon through experimentation as the 150 recommended temperature wasn’t working for me) to loosen feathers, usually 20 seconds or so. After that, it’s on to the cylinder thingy that spins while the rubber fingers remove most of the feathers. Still have a few stragglers to hand pluck but that’s about a one minute process. Finally it goes to the covered area to be cleaned. There’s a granite countertop that makes cleanup a breeze and a rubber horse stall mat to stand on. Room enough for three people to work fairly comfortably. And the little cockerel was stopping by to say hello…

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I eat commercially processed chicken every day, and raise chickens for this purpose, but am not sure how to proceed with killing animals. How do you reconcile?

It doesn't get easier emotionally, but it becomes more efficient the more you do. At least that's my experience. How I reconcile to the act of killing one or more of God's creatures whom I've raised and cared for and laughed with since egg-hood:

1. I remind myself they would not exist but for me incubating eggs or allowing them to hatch. Their entire purpose in life on my farm is to produce either eggs or meat to eat. They exist to satisfy my needs, as God created me, and He created animals like chickens and others for that purpose.
Genesis 1:26 - "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
Genesis 9:3 - "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things."

2. I pray. I thank Heavenly Father for the blessings he has provided us with, and ask His blessing on the birds. I ask for His guidance on my hands to give them a quick and painless death, as much as possible. If I have helpers to process chickens, we do this as a group prayer. I have some Native American ancestry, so I'm reminded of the circle of life and how Indians would say prayers for the souls of their animals, too.

3. Next, as I carry a bird towards the processing area, I talk to him or her, and pet them, and thank them for their life and the gifts they are about to give me. It gets especially hard at this point, because the birds are usually so calm and trusting of me, perhaps even imprinted on me. Blissfully, they have no idea what's about to happen and are not afraid.

4. And then I get it over with as quickly as possible. Just grit my teeth and do it. I use killing cones to restrain them and PVC cutters to snip their heads off. Once they are all dispatched, the actual processing is just work, but not difficult to handle at all.

5. Finally, I try to do the birds justice by using every part of their bodies for some benefit. Icky bits and feathers get buried in the garden for fertilizer and compost. Hopefully the blood that remains on grass etc. will convince rabbits and such to stay out of my garden and find their dinner elsewhere. (I do it near the garden gate.) Backs, wingtips, necks, and giblets are boiled for a few hours, and the meat bits and skin are processed for dog and cat food. Broth is either frozen or canned. Fat is skimmed off, rendered, and frozen for later use. Bones, picked clean, are then buried in the garden as well.

And my freezer fills up with bounty to feed my family all year long.