Chick culling - A useful tool

For those of you I'm about to offend, I apologize. But I suggest the following: before you kill anything through lack of oxygen, have someone you trust impose on you a lack of oxygen long enough to make you lose consciouness. It may take only 40 seconds and I assure you they will be the longest most PANIC FILLED 40 seconds of your life! Have someone wrap their arm around your throat, with your windpipe in the crook of their arm, have them squeeze, and when you wake up (convulsing a little as you do) please view the CLAW marks that you will have left on their arm as your last gasps of panic make you fight like a wild animal. Try it. Tell me if I'm wrong. I am not.

There is nothing humane about inflicting an oxygen shortage. It creates terror and panic and agony. Inhaling certain oxygen displacing gases is also known to be painful. WHile many of us are more comfortable with a bloodless death, do not confuse bloodless with humane. Keeping your hands clean does not mean it was a good death for the animal.

For argument's sake, have that same trusted person who choked you until you passed out, whack you on the head with a solid object, like a hammer or 2x4. Pay attention to the event, there will be an exam later. What happened? If your trusted assistant is good with his aim and didn't in fact kill you, you will come to and recall a star. Usually one bright one, zipping into view before everything went black. No pain, no panic, no fighting, just boom, gone. Laid out in the cow pasture so cows can step on your head. (childhood flashback)

I have been knocked out several times in several different ways and ANY METHOD that takes more than a second to complete is not humane. Immediate senselessness should be the aim, followed by blood loss or head loss that ensure death and no regained consciousness.

This discussion rears its head everywhere chicken keeping is the topic. Often a bloodless 'neat' death is deemed more humane, but that is simply not the truth. The faster the death, the better, and when you are gasping for air, you are in terror and agony. To me, any of that is unacceptable. I would NEVER smother an animal. Denying air is smothering. And I am very sorry to say this and upset those of you who find this method acceptable...but until you've actually experienced those few seconds of sheer blind panic, you cannot say that it is tolerable. Because it most certainly is not. Death should be practically instant and involve nothing from the bird but a brief moment of, what the....?

I know I will be on the poop list, but have to say it anyway. What is often easier for us to cope with, is cruelty to the animal.

Very good points.

I love UNO!

I agree Uno. The only being who mey benefit from death by oxygen deprivation is the inflictor. It can be a frightening way to go.

I find this all very interesting; as interesting as it is controversial. We very much have different ways of rationalizing painlessness and humane behavior when it comes to culling out birds. This topic went in a surprising direction for me, but I like it very much.

I think, ultimately for me, severing the head from the neck and the brain stem is what's important. I feel like to smush a chick's head or rip it off with my hands would take an anger inside me I just don't have. That said, however, when landlord put down a cat with a .22 because vet couldn't/wouldn't see him for euthanasia for 2 days and landlord did a bad job, I picked up that fence post and was able to use it to end the suffering. But that act carried a lot of anger that I just pushed through the motions, anger it was done wrong, anger that I asked him to be shot, anger that I had to see him suffering, brainscrambled or not. Anger and hatred of the act I was doing to complete the act that should have been done. Maybe if I didn't have other tools at my disposal, I could whack chicks or pull off their heads with my bare hands.

I have to say I agree with Uno, but I'll follow that up with I'm not judging those who do it that way as long as they do so with the quickest death via that method possible. One of my most horrific memories was jumping into the deep end when my baby sitter was supposed to be watching and dropping in over my head, like a rock to the bottom of the pool. I didn't inhale water, I knew there was no air to breathe. 30 seconds felt like days to me, struggling to doggy paddle my way up, making noise without ever opening my mouth and knowing my screams were unheard. All this knowing at less than 5 years old, and a terrifying memory in my string of young-days memories.

Another way I'm 'good with the deed' is I feed the culls to the wild cats so their life didn't seem meaningless to me, more circle of life fluffy hippy bullspit, but that connection and link is something I crave. Even the birds that I've had just drop dead (3 now in 2 years.. not sure if that's bad or average or what), once found, I throw them into the cat barn up high, away from the dogs for the outside cats.

Thanks for sharing, everyone, keep it up if you like

Sue, can you post stuff yet? How'd you break it!

I have used the same method as Uno with the shovel on the back of the chicks neck. It's very quick. Usually, I have a pre-dug hole to bury the chick in, and use the same shovel to scoop up the chick and into the hole, or if there is a fire to burn the chick. No need to pick up the dead chick with your hands. I've used this method with chicks. I just can't bring myself to pull off the heads with my hands. I read about using a butter knife on a soft surface to crush the neck and tried that, but it was an awful experience, so the shovel it is. It's very quick and final in one swift step.

For larger birds, I have found that the broomstick method works well. You can feel when the neck gives, and it is bloodless. Unless you pull too hard. I found that some chickens seem to have weaker necks and the heads come off to easy.

silkiebantam wrote:I found that some chickens seem to have weaker necks and the heads come off to easy.

I have also found the same. Some it's almost like it was never attached in the first place.

Sweetened wrote:

silkiebantam wrote:I found that some chickens seem to have weaker necks and the heads come off to easy.

I have also found the same. Some it's almost like it was never attached in the first place.

Oh, totally! I found that the polish had the weaker necks. I kinda gagged when it happened. I was thinking it has to do with the finer bone and muscular structure of the breed. Other Birds you had to pull very hard to feel it give.

silkiebantam wrote:Oh, totally! I found that the polish had the weaker necks. I kinda gagged when it happened. I was thinking it has to do with the finer boner and muscular structure of the breed. Other Birds you had to pull very hard to feel it give.

I've had it happen 3 times. I have had 2 birds that have had what appear to be strokes. Their entire left side becomes non functional, one I purchased from an auction and she ended up with the 'stroke' the second day we had her, maybe from stress. and the other I hatched on site, and it was about 2 weeks before I planned to harvest him.

The first one, her neck popped but nothing else broke, it all just stretched and pulled, I almost ralphed my guts out. This other bird I hatched, I barely tugged his legs and there was no blood, no flapping, no seizing, nothing. It was -so- weird. Even after I hung him to pull feathers, there was nothing, I don't know if there was a block or a blood clot or what. Weirdest.