My personal thoughts: A cleaver would mean that you'd need 3 hands to cut the bird. One to hold the body, one to hold the head & one to hold the cleaver. Their heads/necks are so small unlike chickens, that I feel it'd be risky trying to solo fiddle w/ a big cleaver & fast reflexes of a quail.
However, my thoughts are just that; I've yet to raise quail, let alone cull any yet. Although I do intend to when I move in a month. My way to cull will likely be getting super sharp scissors built for clean cutting heavy things like cables or bones. Not some garden or fabric shears.
Another idea I have is to make a small set of killing cones so that it's easier/faster to cull a few at once. I think it would also be much cleaner as the bird's weight is put in the cone & it's less likely to twitch or fly out - much like how the chicken cones work. And of course like you tried, I would let my birds be off food the day before but keep them as hydrated as possible. As a twist, you could feed them a little bit of garlic for part of their last meal, would make the processing much more pleasant.
Sycamore, great job at your first co-op cull. With time it'll get easier to do the job (in skill, not just emotion). Best of luck with your tasty bird, let us know how that went.
I don't think it would make it a three hand job. I found when grasped by the legs with one hand and hung upside down the quail got quite calm and still. A quick move to pick up the cleaver, lay the bird on the cutting board, and take the head off with the other hand should be easy if done quickly. That's of course assuming that all quail will react that way to being held by the feet upside down, but I remember reading a couple posts suggesting holding them that way to process so I'm inclined to think that's the normal reaction.
The cones sound like a good idea too. If we were planning a bigger operation I might do that, and may decide to in the future anyway.
We're operating on a shoestring so all-metal shears given to me by my parents was the way to go. Checking them out after the fact they were not quite as sharp as I thought I had honed them. They made quick work of cutting through meat and bones to clean the bird, but the elasticity of the skin made it impossible to snip the head clear off at the sharpness they were.
Still the cut they made sliced the throat and broke the neck, just that the vocal cords were intact as they wouldn't have been if the head had come off (plus expecting the head to come off the cut was sideways instead of front to back). The cry it made while the nerves were still firing around freaked me out a good bit.
Lightly seasoned quail is in the oven right now, and I learned a lot from this first time, so on the whole I'm thankful for it and know we'll be more prepared next time.
Cheers,
Jessie
