Hello all. I am the "go to" person for slaughtering chickens at my home and also among the neighbors. I hate doing it and do not ever want to meet a person who likes it. What works for me is a modified cone method. Because I have had a lot of difficulty getting the neck cut properly and have caused needless distress for a few birds as I was trying to learn, I now put the bird into the cone, wrap the legs securely with plastic sheathed wire,(husband is an electrician, so it's handy) and place one shot from my BB pistol right behind the eye. I know after that the bird is insensible to whatever comes next. This has been working for me pretty well for a few years now. That said, I have also used carbon dioxide by mixing baking soda with vinegar in an enclosed container. I have done it in a four gallon plastic container for an Orpington that I could not bear to cut, and it worked fine because she was already weak. We drilled a hole in the lid that allowed a piece of PVC pipe to fit snugly through. The sad, sick hen was placed into the bucket along with the proper amount of baking soda in a small soup can in one corner under the pipe hole.Handy husband had also cut away one side of the end of the pipe to allow the liquid to run through more quickly. The vinegar was introduced a quickly as practical and the pipe corked with a graduated rubber wine cork. It was very fast and the hen went quite easily. I would use that method again, if needed. Because we raise chicks year 'round for our feed store, I often have to cull young cockerels and use a smaller carbon dioxide bucket set up for those. I can do several at a time in a two gallon bucket with very little fuss or stress to the birds. One and one half tablespoons of baking soda, plus one cup of vinegar (5%) will produce one gallon of carbon dioxide. Adjust the amounts in proportion to the volume of container you plan to use. I hope this is helpful to someone. It is no fun, but it has to be done.
