Thoughts on "the deed" today.

[Dogfish]

Sent a batch of 4 to freezer camp today, 3 roosters and 1 hen, all CX.

We did the deed in the kill cones for the 3 roosters, sliced the neck, clean and simple. Father in law had said he would just chop the heads off, back in the day, so we gave that a try with a machette. It was sharp, and we tied a wire to the neck of the bird. I held the bird, my son pulled the string, and I dropped the hammer.

Let me say that I will be using the kill cones exclusively from now on. It was a clean kill with one blow, but there was a fair amount of movement, which was a bit disturbing to my 14 year old son, and surprisingly to me. Mind you, we hunt deer, bear and elk every year. I've killed 20 deer, 10 elk, 2 bear, and my son has taken 4 deer and a bear. Thousands of birds have fallen to my shotgun, literally, and I kill upwards of 60 coyotes every year. Hardest kill to date was that hen.

Anyway, just something to keep in mind as you prepare to do the deed. Hopefully you find this helpful.

 

[Kittymomma]

Hey Dogfish, where did you get the kill cones?

I have roos that dh has been telling me he's gonna take care of for months now. I'm horid with an ax/machette, but would like to try the cones. Dh put a fence up for my garden last week and saw first hand how mauled the hens are getting, so he might take care of it tomorrow, but is still hot for the machette because that's how the did it when he was a kid. I think (from what I've read) that the cones will be easier and less mess so would like to do what you did and try both.

Thanks!

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
Personally , I've softened with age ; but there is also something entirely different between killing from a distance and then skinning and/or processing versus ending a life of something I've put considerable effort into keeping alive in an " upclose and personal " manner so to speak .
I hope you are able to enjoy the bounty ; and can perhaps get some understanding of the Native American's reverence of all life and the gift it gives us in the end .

 

[Dogfish]

I will not have any issue enjoying the bounty, as I have convinced the wife that we'll be doing this every year, 3 or 4 batches of 25 each time.

Put a number of animals down at close range when hunting, as well as animals hit by vehicles when I was a deputy. Those usually had some adrenalin or had some bit of fair chase involved. These were more "matter of fact" dispatching. Just interesting how it struck me after being an old hat at "death".

Our kill cone is a traffic cone, trimmed for the purpose.

Works like a charm.

 

[SteveH]

If you grow them any bigger you're going to need a bigger cone

 

[gogoalie]

Dogfish...take yer kid bird hunting...how many times I've downed a bird in front of my son & had to "wring" their neck...I'm sure being new to this, when we have to butcher our birds, my son shouldn't be as squiemish 'bout how much movement the bird has, as he's seen it already with waterfowl & ptarmigan...jmho...

 

[Dogfish]

He's killed birds, ducks, grouse & geese, but your suggestion is a good one.

They were good sized birds, the three roosters were all of 6.5 lbs. The hen was about 5.5 lbs dressed. Similar results to my first group. Used my drill mounted plucker, so on these full sized birds it took a good 3-4 minutes to pluck, but I did a thorough job. An hour from the first cut to the fridge for 4 birds, including kill, scald, pluck, gut, trim and ice down for 30 minutes.

I'll be ordering some of those shrink bags Jaku uses before I process the next 25. That looks like it would save time over a vac pac.

Looking forward to tomorrow night's dinner.