Whether you want to butcher your own meat chickens or are simply keeping hens as farm animals for eggs you will at times need to kill chickens. This page gives you a step by step description of how to kill a chicken as humanly as possible. There are other methods used to kill chickens but I have found this technique to be quite effective, especially if you only intend to kill two or three chickens.
- A STURDY BLOCK OF WOOD TO ACT AS A CHOPPING BLOCK
- SHARP HATCHET (SMALL AXE)
A large axe will also do the job but I find that a hatchet is better as it is easier to wield. - LARGE PLASTIC CONTAINER
A 60 litre rubbish bin is ideal. - PLASTIC BIN LINER
This is optional, it is only needed if you are going to dispose of the chicken in the garbage bin or you intend to pluck and butcher the chicken after you have killed it. - TORCH, LANTERN OR A SPACE WITH LIGHTING
If you are killing your chickens at night.
Chickens should never be killed in front of the rest of the flock. Always move a chicken you intend to kill to a place out of site of the chicken run. For me that is usually the garage; not only is it out of sight of the rest of the flock but it is well lit due to the garage lighting.
I normally kill my chickens at night. Chickens have virtually no night vision, which makes it both easy to collect the chickens (they will all be roosting in one place instead of walking around the chicken run as they would be in the daytime) and less likely that the rest of the chickens will realise that some of their brethren are being taken. Removing the chickens you intend to kill at night minimises the disruption to the rest of the flock.
Before collecting the first chicken to be killed set the chopping block and hatchet on the ground where you intend to kill them with the plastic bin right next to it. If you are using a plastic bin liner then insert it into the bin.
Once you have selected the chicken that you intend to kill pick it up by its feet and flip it upside down. Chickens carried upright will cry out in distress and attempt to fly away but once they are flipped upside down they will become quiet within a few seconds and can then be easily carried to where you want to kill them.
A chicken held upside down by the feet will become quiet within a few seconds and can then be easily carried to where you want to kill them.
A: Firmly hold the chicken upside down by the feet with your left hand (if you are right handed). With your right hand draw the neck downwards and out at a 45 deg angle while keeping your elbow in a bent position and the chicken’s body facing straight down.
B: Straighten the arm in a sharp downward thrust at the same time further extending the neck into a 90 deg bend. If this action is strong enough and you maintain a firm hold on the chicken’s leg it should apply enough force to break its neck.
C: Swiftly place the head of the chicken on your chopping block and chop down on the neck with a hatchet to open up the jugular vein. While a chicken with a broken neck will die opening the jugular vein hastens its death. You do not have to chop the chicken’s head off, just open the vein so it bleeds out more quickly.
D: Dangle the chicken by the feet in the plastic bin until the bird stops rigorously flapping its wing (about 20 to 30 seconds). Once the flapping has reached a point when the wings are only moving feebly drop the chicken into the bin.
Holding a chicken in a garbage bin as it goes through its final death throws.
There are three options for disposing of chicken carcasses.
- BUTCHER THE CHICKEN
If you intend to butcher (pluck, gut and cut up) the chicken then proceed to do so as soon as possible. - DISPOSE OF THE CHICKEN IN YOUR GARBAGE BIN
If using this method line the plastic bin you killed the chicken in with a bin liner, then all you have to do is tie off the liner and place it in your garbage bin. - BURY THE CHICKEN UNDER A TREE OR SHRUB
This is my preferred method of disposing of a chicken carcass if I am not going to eat it as carcasses makes good fertiliser. But make sure you bury it deep enough so that a dog or fox cannot dig it up. After burying a chicken carcass I always place a sheet of iron weighed down with bricks on top of the burial site to insure this does not happen.
