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Posted: 11/28/2017 2:21:54 PM EDT
We got 14 chickens last spring. They free range about 10 acres during the day.
Anyways we got 2 polish chickens that ended up being roosters. We purposely bought rooster (dont remember the breed). The rooster we have is a bad mofo and very pretty to look at. The polish ones were constantly fighting each other and occasionally the big rooster. So I decided Saturday to kill the polish roosters Sunday. The first one I just grabbed him by the head and spun/swung him around. It for sure broke his neck but I guess I thought his head was supposed to come off easily. I spun that fucker around about 20 full turns before his damn head came off. All while he was flapping everywhere. That was a little harder than expected. The next one I thought I would just cut his head off. I sharpened our biggest butcher knife we had. I laid him on a piece of wood. I pushed the knife as hard as I could and it just wouldn't go through. I thought I broke his neck so I just got up. That fucker got up and started hobbling away. I just said screw it and shot the fucker. I cleaned them and they are some weird as chickens with the darkest meat I have ever seen. I just boiled them up, deboned them, and fed them to the dogs. Anyways this was kinda a last minute decision. Come spring thought I would like to probably harvest some chickens and replace them with the breeds that seem to be the best fit. What does arfcom think will work better a killing cone or an axe? I want it to be easier than my first go. |
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They keep flapping after you break the neck, but they are dead. A few good spins should be enough, then just drop it and let it spasm and flap.
Kinda like how a raccoon and some other animals twitch and kicks after blowing its head up. |
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Grab the head in your hand beak down. Spin over head until the bird departs the pattern. Assuming your not a limp wrist, the head should stay in your hand.
Thats how how we did it after my pops almost lopped off a finger using a hatchet. You can get it done in two revolutions |
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so you killed them for what exactly? ran out of dog food? View Quote It is not easy to re home a rooster. Polish chickens/roosters are not good meat chickens or I would have eaten them myself. |
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Heck...step on the head, pull the body off. Not rocket surgery.
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Quoted: Because having 3 roosters for 10 hens is not ideal. They will wear then hens out and fight with eachother. It is not easy to re home a rooster. Polish chickens/roosters are not good meat chickens or I would have eaten them myself. View Quote good kill. |
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I spun that fucker around about 20 full turns before his damn head came off. View Quote Holy fuck, I just spit coffee everywhere! |
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Been choking
The chicken all my life .. Never tried to take the head off .. Shrug |
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One of my childhood chores with grandpa was to retrieve the quail after he cut their heads off. They can run a lot further than you think.
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I think too many people including the OP watch too many movies.
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Ffs, it's not rocket surgery. The head doesn't have to come off. This way is pretty fool proof, and you can pull the head off if it makes you feel better.
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Neighbor used to have a big splitting log with two nails sticking out of it. They were close enough together to hold the chickens head while you're holding the feet. Lop head off with hatchet. Voila
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Lay the chicken's head on a log and smash it with a mallet. Kills them quick and they don't flop and run around without a head.
Or, cut the bottom and top out of a milk jug and fasten it to a tree upside down. The hole in the now bottom of the jug should only be big enough to get a chicken head through but not beyond that...sort of like a chicken funnel. You then feed the chicken through the large end and stick his head out of the head hole and cleave his head off with a hatchet or heavy knife. It won't be able to go anywhere before or after the head chopping, and the blood will drain out the neck for easier cleaning. |
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Quoted:
We got 14 chickens last spring. They free range about 10 acres during the day. Anyways we got 2 polish chickens that ended up being roosters. We purposely bought rooster (dont remember the breed). The rooster we have is a bad mofo and very pretty to look at. The polish ones were constantly fighting each other and occasionally the big rooster. So I decided Saturday to kill the polish roosters Sunday. The first one I just grabbed him by the head and spun/swung him around. It for sure broke his neck but I guess I thought his head was supposed to come off easily. I spun that fucker around about 20 full turns before his damn head came off. All while he was flapping everywhere. That was a little harder than expected. The next one I thought I would just cut his head off. I sharpened our biggest butcher knife we had. I laid him on a piece of wood. I pushed the knife as hard as I could and it just wouldn't go through. I thought I broke his neck so I just got up. That fucker got up and started hobbling away. I just said screw it and shot the fucker. I cleaned them and they are some weird as chickens with the darkest meat I have ever seen. I just boiled them up, deboned them, and fed them to the dogs. Anyways this was kinda a last minute decision. Come spring thought I would like to probably harvest some chickens and replace them with the breeds that seem to be the best fit. What does arfcom think will work better a killing cone or an axe? I want it to be easier than my first go. View Quote |
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Holy shit what an amateur. LOL! You had to shot a chicken to kill it? LOL! Maybe killing and butchering animals is not for you.
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we have had chickens for a long time. And you're right it's a lot of work to kill one (amazingly hard, really)
so when we get extra roosters (or they just get old) we put an ad in Craigslist free rooster (or old laying hen) a little Asian person always comes (always of Asian descent) within hours and takes them. those birds are dinner, it's never an issue. |
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Choking a chicken is kind of natural. I don't know what difficulties you ran into.
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... odd, twice in an hour I've referenced my grandparents.
One of the most horrific things I've ever seen as a young child was grandma cutting a chicken's head off with one efficient swipe of an ax. Fucking thing ran around fluttering - sans its head on tree trunk. Weirded me right out. Blood squirting everywhere, damn |
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TLDR.
We raise chickens on our small farm for money. Eggs, meat, whatever. We've had birds for years. We have slaughtered many birds....I grew up with a farming family. That being said, I have never had one person step up to wring a neck. Ever. You'r grand pappy did it? OK. Whatever. ETA: Why wouldn't you want to bleed it out? |
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You had already killed the first one if you severed the spinal cord. There is a reason for the saying " Ruining around like a chicken with its head cut off."
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Get a chicken kill cone. And a set of loppers to just lop the head right off.
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I thought the best tasting birds were the ones you kept penned up and fed a lot. Free ranging birds seem like they would be tougher. I raised emus for a while and they are kinda like big chickens. When it was time to harvest some I would get up on the garage roof with my bow and get some live animal practice. Otherwise, a .22 birdshot to the top of the head works good too.
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I used two large nails pounded into my kindling chopping block like a "V" shape. Wedge chicken's head on one side, stretch their neck out, and chop on the other side of the nails. Fling the chickens away from you so you don't get blood spurted on you, and toss them somewhere they can flop around for a bit after they have been decapitated. Most flop around, but without a head, there is nothing in the body to interpret signals, and just as with a sleeper hold (incorrectly called a choke) the head will loose consciousness VERY quickly..probably about the time it hits the ground. It is a quick, and consistent way to kill birds.
A giant pot of boiling water to dip the birds in will loosen feathers if you want to pluck them manually. |
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Quoted: I spun that fucker around about 20 full turns before his damn head came off. All while he was flapping everywhere. That was a little harder than expected. View Quote |
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A couple years back we ended up with a few extra roosters...Black australorps. Mean fuckers. Pecked and spurred my daughters so they got voted into the stew pot. I had a big stainless cleaver and sharpened it on the worksharp until it was hair shaving sharp. Laid the first rooster across a stump and it took three wacks to behead it.
Holy Christ it was like The Shining. Blood everywhere, chicken running around, my kids shrieking with joy (they insisted on watching). Second bird my aim was off and and I lobbed off the beak and part of its face. Took about five more strikes to end it. I was covered with blood. The next day I went out to feed my flock and they all stared at me like THEY FUCKING KNEW WHAT I DID. Now I shoot them through the head with a .22. Way less mess. Ugh. |
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Ffs, it's not rocket surgery. The head doesn't have to come off. This way is pretty fool proof, and you can pull the head off if it makes you feel better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCNKmdG3M44 View Quote |
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Two quick cuts on the side of the neck and he goes to sleep without all the fuss.
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Grab chicken neck and use off hand to place chicken body on bicep
"Cast" chicken as if its neck is the rod and its body is the lure |
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Quoted:
TLDR. We raise chickens on our small farm for money. Eggs, meat, whatever. We've had birds for years. We have slaughtered many birds....I grew up with a farming family. That being said, I have never had one person step up to wring a neck. Ever. You'r grand pappy did it? OK. Whatever. ETA: Why wouldn't you want to bleed it out? View Quote They had a really large mean Rooster . Every time we went in the coop, the Rooster attacked us. One day it tore up my friend pretty good. We went to the house to tell his mother. We would always complain about that Rooster. Don't know if we told her at a good/bad time but she took off her apron and walked very quickly towards the chicken coop. We were right behind her. She opened the door , took one step in the coop , reached behind the door into the corner of the coop where the Rooster liked to perch, grabbed it and ripped it's head off in a blur. Ripped it's head off in two seconds. Scared the living shit out of me. I had never seen that done before and not by a women. Dad and Grandpa used a hatchet or axe. My buddy told me " that's how mom kills all the chickens" I never forgot that and can still see her taking the head off that chicken. |
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Neighbor used to have a big splitting log with two nails sticking out of it. They were close enough together to hold the chickens head while you're holding the feet. Lop head off with hatchet. Voila View Quote |
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That's exactly how we did it when I was a kid. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Ffs, it's not rocket surgery. The head doesn't have to come off. This way is pretty fool proof, and you can pull the head off if it makes you feel better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCNKmdG3M44 |
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Killing cone is the way to go if you're butchering a bunch. Easy to make one out of a rolled up cardboard box. You want to slice the throat so all the blood is pumped out of the body (head removal can stop the heart before that happens).
I've killed many an animal before, in several different ways, but slicing those chickens' throats is a different thing altogether. It's close, personal, and a little cold-blooded. I found it to be a profound experience. |
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Wife has a cousin that grew up on a farm. As a kid, kiling a chicken, and she accidentally chopped a finger off with it. Another chicken promptly gobbled it up and disappeared into the flock.
It's a funnier story at a Wisconsin wedding. (Cue the 'open bar' jokes) |
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That's exactly how we did it when I was a kid. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Ffs, it's not rocket surgery. The head doesn't have to come off. This way is pretty fool proof, and you can pull the head off if it makes you feel better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCNKmdG3M44 I've chopped heads off before as well. I don't care for it, but I don't understand all the people saying that they couldn't chop it off in one whack. I wonder if those people had no experience chopping things with a machete or cleaver? |
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My parents grew up during the Great Depression.
My dad told me this story about wringing chicken's necks. He told me it was my Grandfather's job to kill the chickens for dinner. For some reason, it was not done soon enough for my Grandmother. My Grandmother had never done that task and grabbed a chicken by the feet and started worling it around. She noticed her way was not working when she dropped the chicken and it began staggering around the yard! Needless to say, she heard about her failed attempt for a number of years! |
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They're just like geese, but you don't have to use a full sized chest of drawers, just a file cabinet.
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Quoted: When I was a kid , I used to visit my friend almost daily. His family raised chickens, pigs, and rabbits. His mother used to give us a basket and tell us to go in the chicken coop and collect the eggs. They had a really large mean Rooster . Every time we went in the coop, the Rooster attacked us. One day it tore up my friend pretty good. We went to the house to tell his mother. We would always complain about that Rooster. Don't know if we told her at a good/bad time but she took off her apron and walked very quickly towards the chicken coop. We were right behind her. She opened the door , took one step in the coop , reached behind the door into the corner of the coop where the Rooster liked to perch, grabbed it and ripped it's head off in a blur. Ripped it's head off in two seconds. Scared the living shit out of me. I had never seen that done before and not by a women. Dad and Grandpa used a hatchet or axe. My buddy told me " that's how mom kills all the chickens" I never forgot that and can still see her taking the head off that chicken. View Quote |
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OP, are you looking for laying hens or meat birds? This will greatly determine what breed to go with however each year I raise about 20 cornish cross chicks and in 8-10 weeks they are full size and ready for the butcher table. They taste great and after the first three weeks, require little effort.
In regards to killing them, I always set up a chopping block and use a hatchet to chop the heads off. Takes one swipe and then I pick them up by the legs and hold them upside down until they stop flapping to allow them to drain out. I then hang them upside down to continue the draining. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions about them however I cannot help much in regards to laying hens. A friend of mine has 50 of them so he gives me a dozen or so a week. |
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