Wow! Derailed! Humane slaughter.

Here I am happily looking at the chicken plucker thread. Click on FarmChiq's link about Hillbilly chicken pluckers (very clever). While on youtube, I click on a link about Polyface Farm. I've read about Polyface Farm and how wonderful it is. Like heaven for livestock. Start watching. A narrator is talking about harvest day for the broilers.

Harvest day? Are the broilers going to help the farmer pick potatoes? Bale hay? What shall the broilers be harvesting? Wait. You mean the broilers will be harvested? Uh..isn't this coward speak for SLAUGHTERED? BUt I watch on, seeing the fat little birdies get set, head down, into the killing cone. I wait for the little hatchet to come and chop off their little heads.

Instead a sharp knife slices both sides of the neck. The narrator babbles happily on about how the carotid artery is sliced, but not the windpipe. What he does NOT say is this bird is fully conscious and in pain as its heart pumps out all the blood until there is no more blood to pump. This bird dies absolutely aware that it is dying.

Hmmm. From my own personal view on humane slaugher. Polyface farm gets a big fat FAIL. If you cannot provide an animal instant death, then you render it instantly senseless and then make it dead. There is, in my mind, no excuse for this method of killing. I don`t care how beaucolic and pastoral the setting of Pukeface farms, there is NO REASON IN THE WORLD to choose to keep an animal alive as it dies, if you have an alternative. And they do. And they chose pain and panic over senselessness and no pain. Sorry. Sucks. I know I will offend those who like to slice throats but I think we have evolved beyond that and I simply do not think it is a humane choice when we can and are obligated, to do better.

I am completely bummed out. From happy plucker how-to to horror chicken snuff videos. Sick.

Yup, I've seen the video.
I completely take the head off, Using a cone, and a knife (it's called rapid decapitation). The only way Joel Salatin's way is human is if the animal is stunned first.
Otherwise it's just fully concious and bleeding to death upside down with blood most likely dripping in it's eyes.... How morbid.

Rapid Decapitation.
RAPID DECAPITATION.

I like that.

Personal opinion. There is no such thing as a nice death. All you can do is try to do your best to do it as quick for the aniaml as possible. Even in the best of hands with the best intentions to make it swift, there are times when it isn't going to be. All we can do is try to make it as quick as possible. I for one hate doing it. I only cull when I have to. I always feel guilt ridden like I loose a part of my soul when I do it.

Toybarons, you are right. A 'good' death is a relative term. I think death for farm animals happens on a sliding scale. I feel it is my responsibility to dial it up to 'as good a death as possible' rather than accept any old death.

Hubby does the dispatching here (or 'harvesting' for those who like to sanitize the process). Every now and then something does NOT go according to plan and he has to swing twice to remove a head. This is considered a failure, is met with agony and misry on his part and probably on part of the chicken too. As you say, every now and then things go sideways, despite our best intentions.

What I saw in that video is what I would call a careless and scary absence of good intentions. A bird that is aware and in pain is a FAIL FAIL FAIL alert! It wasn't as if just one bird died that way accidentally, but ALL THEIR BIRDS, died that way, INTENTIONALLY!

I can forgive the person who takes great care to cause no panic, pain or suffering, but botches up once in a while. I have no respect for those who care nothing about the mental or physical state of the animal that dies for them. It's just lazy.

Uno, I'm with you in that I could never do the cone method. When I got onto my first poultry forum several years ago, I was the pet chicken person who feared at the thought of having to dispatch a bird. I took a razzing from those who felt I was a hyprocrite in not wanting to kill a bird yet would happily eat one, cause yes I do loe to eat poultry.

Culling my first sick bird left me sick and a crying wreck. On line I went and that was when I looked up the cone method. As my dial up would take me 6 months to download a 2 minute video, I found a site where it was all laid out in picture detail. Do me "Detail". Pretty much the same as what you saw. Knew I did not have the stomache for that. Then I saw a tv program which should how they shove a rod down a bird's throat and shocked it before doing the deed. Didn't think that any better. To be hung upside down and to have a pole rammed down the throat and to me electricuted is so much kinder? Having been acciendentally shocked myself I do realize that maybe it is, some strange way. I know I couldn't even recall what the heck happened other than my face was blacken and I felt weird when I was brought around. Still. I'll never get used to doing it myself.

I guess the point was that the bird bleeds out better that way? but I totally agree that it is unacceptable to allow it just to bleed to death.
I once thought I had found a very quick way way to dispatch sick or injured birds by dislocating the neck under a broom handle but found to my horror that all I had done was severed the spinal column so the bird was still functionally alive just paralyzed..
Since then I have gone back to the full decapitation in both humane culling and butchering for meat, just the meat one is upside down in a cone.

Miry I think Mr. Polyface may mistakenly believe that they bleed out better with their heart still beating.

Whatever.

They bleed out perfectly fine if the head is removed in one, quick blow. Gravity assits the bleed out of upside down birds and most butchered birds, whether in a cone or hanging from a nail, are upside down.

mirycreek wrote:I guess the point was that the bird bleeds out better that way? but I totally agree that it is unacceptable to allow it just to bleed to death.
I once thought I had found a very quick way way to dispatch sick or injured birds by dislocating the neck under a broom handle but found to my horror that all I had done was severed the spinal column so the bird was still functionally alive just paralyzed..
Since then I have gone back to the full decapitation in both humane culling and butchering for meat, just the meat one is upside down in a cone.

The broom handle is how I do the birds that are still very healthy but the legs are gone. Usually chicks that develope slip tendons or Merecks. I hate doing it! I just can't bring myself to cutting the head off and I can't keep my eyes open to swing an small axe. Heck, I can't even hit the wood when I am trying to make kindling it takes me several tried before I hit the wood. I'm sad, I know.

My husband helps me when I have to use the handle. Once the neck is done, I then use my hands to finish the bird to make sure the bone is broke. FRANK, I wish I could do it like those that can just severve the bone with their hands. I tried but can't seem to do it. Apoligies for ranting but I just had to do a young chick just a few nights ago and I still feel horrible about it.

I wouldn't ever be able to just slit their throats.

I think with the broom handle method if it is done correctly it tears the arteries in the neck and the chicken bleeds out under the skin in the neck. The spinal collum is also severed at the same time. If you feel with your fingers you will be able to feel the gap. I found that it probably took he chickens the same amount of time to die as they would of had their heads been chopped off.

Having said and done that. I hope it is something I will never have to do again, as I think of it on a daily bases and it still bothers me.

Hey Silkie! How are you keeping these days? NIce to see you here, even for such a gruesome topic.

Toybarons, we do use the cone. But using the cone is not a method. IT's just a way of holding the bird. You can cone them and chop the head (as we do) or cone them and slice the veins (as Polyface does). SO using a cone doesn't mean one way of killing the bird, just a way to contain it. I like the cone because they can't beat their wings black and blue while flopping.

It has also taken me a long time to keep my eyes open while using an axe, used to try and chop my own fingers off while holding wood, swinging the axe and looking away at the last second. NOT a good way to work an axe when yor fingers are involved. I can splt wood and kindling now without closing my eyes. But kill a chicken? Nope, although I have killed small chicks using the edge of a shovel to quickly decapitate them. Wonder if using downward foot pressure instead of hand pressure, would work on an adult bird? Too scared to try.

Uno you are right. I used the wrong wording with the cone.
My problem with the kindling is not keeping my eyes open. I just can't hit the darn wood =P I mean really, I see the wood and do my best to hit it but I miss it. Guess I just need to practice. But I don't think I could ever have the stomache to cut a bird's head off.

I want to say that it is nice to know that there are others like me who feel unsettled doing this. I really dislike being razzed because even after all these years I still cry and feel bad about culling a chicken.

I am not good with an axe, I have a small hatchet. I keep it REALLY sharp and I am able to do rooster with one swing. I hate it and it took some practise, but hubby put his foot down about 3 years into me having birds and wouldn't do it for me any more.

So a really sharp hatchet I can swing with one hand while I hold the bird with the other seems to work for me.

Cutting the neck artery method was one I came across when googling a while ago. In the version I saw right after they sliced the artery they took a scalpel and poked it through the soft palate tissue to sever the brain. The bird went immediately limp and did not seem to suffer in any way. Their theory was severing the brain stops all the flappy flappy and nervous system reactions so the end result is better tasting meat because the bird does not tense up like after taking the head off. We have not yet tried this but are considering it. Seems to be a quick, calm and painless process, not sure if the meat will taste any different?

I will swing the chicken, facing me, so the back of the head hits an inflexible metal rail. The combination of a strong blow to the back of the head and the dislocation of the neck over the rail always results in an instant death.

I agree most of us are never truely comfortable with taking a life. I'm not a fan of doing it either but when the hubby is busy with his truck and I have to get this done. Its time to put my BIG girl panties on and get it done

So I too do the one swift motion hatchet, razor sharp, thanks to hubby. Hold with 1 hand swing with the other. Hubby's has a way of soothing the chicken with the axe before decapitation. Believe it or not he really does get the bird to relax before killing it. I laugh alot out loud at him and eventually get back to my job of pluckin and guttin.

I cut the head off with one quick cut with a very sharp knife. One of my kids hold the legs while I take the head in one hand we hold the bird firmly but gently between us and one quick slice fully decapitates the bird. It is then placed in a box hubby made me to keep them from jumping around. I do the same with the turkeys except we don't have a box built to put them in yet. I hate it when something happens that does not allow me to fully decapitate a bird (usually it not have. Even held quite firmly enough between me and the holder)!

I also do the broomstick method, however the pull is hard and long enough to stretch the neck tissue so you know the head and brain are completely apart from the column. I've botched 2 pulls and nearly threw up when I did it. You know it's wrong right away, they tighten up and both times let go of a struggled wheeze that just sent me reeling into tears as I finished the job. Part of the reason I do it this way is that the blood pools right by the head without getting gory while they flap -- I use the feathers, and it's nice to have them dry and without blood, even though they will be washed.

I suppose that's part of learning, and learn I have. I guess I'm a bit of a carebear, Uno. I use the term harvest because I look at the slaughter as a harvest of everything I can of the bird. Nothing goes to waste. What 'normally would' goes to the barn cats. The word slaughter brings to mind walls sprayed with blood and wanton waste filled with suffering strewn about; the word is just 'brutality' and 'massacre' combined in my life. Both of those I try to avoid because I don't make a massacre of the death and I try to remove as much of the brutality of taking a life as I can by respecting them.

I do agree, however, allowing anything to bleed out is a terrible death and I agree that we have a responsibility to give our food swift and humane deaths.

A question I have, and perhaps I don't understand the concept (and I'm NOT defending him or judging), but is this a Halal type death? Perhaps he does it for certification?

I've seen a video of him slaughtering birds in front of birds. I think that's a large stress on the animal as well.

I cannot say if he does this for halal reasons or not.

When I was kicking dirt on the term 'harvest' I recalled a conversation about this very topic. I can't remember what my position on it was then. BUt how it was used in this video, as chickens kicked and bled to death, I was unimpressed and offended.

You can be sure that, unlike you, he does not make full use of every resource the birds provide, but was going for the most generic, sanitized public relations term he could come up with.

Slaughter does conjure up blood, but this is not bloodless. We don't actually use the term slaughter in eveyday conversation, we say we butcher our own chickens. Don't know if that's any better. Sweetened, I think you watch too many horror movies! No more late night TV for you.

I have no problem killing anything, it is the circle of life. I try to do it as quick and painless as possible. I could care less how someone else kills as long as it is not cruel. I have seen that vidio and have no problem with it, was thinking of trying that myself. The chicken seemed to struggle less then when I cut off their heads. I find a cleaver works the best as the blade is big, so it is harder to miss, at the same time it is easier to handle then an axe. Was contemplating building a guillotine just for ease of killing, and not have misses.

uno wrote:I cannot say if he does this for halal reasons or not.

When I was kicking dirt on the term 'harvest' I recalled a conversation about this very topic. I can't remember what my position on it was then. BUt how it was used in this video, as chickens kicked and bled to death, I was unimpressed and offended.

You can be sure that, unlike you, he does not make full use of every resource the birds provide, but was going for the most generic, sanitized public relations term he could come up with.

Slaughter does conjure up blood, but this is not bloodless. We don't actually use the term slaughter in eveyday conversation, we say we butcher our own chickens. Don't know if that's any better. Sweetened, I think you watch too many horror movies! No more late night TV for you.

Yeah, I watched a horror movie that had me in tears only yesterday. Usually, I'm not bad with them but whoooo boy.

Anyway, I know Polyface is famous and I like the concept of what he does, just not so much a fan on the execution, so I agree with you. We also use the term 'Butcher' here quite often.

I guess in response to lazy, I have to say I do have a problem killing, but I have more of a problem not being involved in that circle of life. It doesn't feel good, spiritually it's very hard on me, mentally it's taxing, but I think it's ethical. I'll even go as far as saying it feels natural, almost 'right.' Not good, but right, like it's the way things were supposed to be (circle of life).

Thanks for this topic Uno, I can't help but get involve with them sometimes