I just killed my first chicken. Here's what happened

I just killed my first chicken tonight, five minutes ago. My hands are still shaking a bit still.

I always said, when I began this blog, that I wanted to be honest. I didn't want to hide anything from you.

I didn't want to be one of those sugar-sweet bloggers who have lovely, named, fancy breed chickens who seem to never age and never come to a bad end, while the blogger posts recipe after recipe for roast chicken and chicken with orange sauce. And no-one ever asks them which of their chickens got sauced ;-)

You've got to laugh, sometimes.

So here's how my first chicken slaughter went down, what it was like, what method I used, and how I feel now (shaky).


Selecting my victim

I decided that our first chicken to get the chop would be a particularly old, nasty chook who has decided she doesn't want to be part of the flock any more.


Here's my victim, seconds before I killed her. The whole thing was quick, and she was dead in less than a minute, from start to finish. I'm certain she didn't suffer at all.

She stopped laying a while back, was pretty scrappy looking, and I'd guess she's at least 5 years old, probably a lot older. She'd taken to roosting in the trees, raiding the animal food hoppers, and attacking my four year old daughter's bare ankles when she went out to play.

I caught the chook this evening about an hour ago, and put her into the cucumber house, which is a little potting shed, nice and quiet away from the other animals.

I figured containing her in a the cuke house for a bit beforehand would calm her, as well as making it easy to catch her for the kill. A good move, in retrospect - she was both calm and easy to kill when the time came.


Choosing a kill method

I'd decided, after looking into various ways to kill chickens, that the "broomstick method" would be best for me. I didn't want blood going everywhere, and we didn't intend to use our elderly chooks for meat. I also wanted something very humane, where the animals wouldn't suffer.

And I was a bit of a wimp, to be honest, and was worried what would happen if I tried using an axe, and missed!

With the broomstick method, you lay the animal down on her chest on the ground, hold her feet with one hand, and lay a broomstick (or a spanner in my case) across her neck. Then, holding her head with your other hand, you put your feet down on the spanner, breaking her neck, while pulling up with your hand on her legs, to break her spine.

Then you just hold her upside down, to let the blood flow into her head. She dies quickly, with no struggle, and no sense of what is happening.

This Youtube explains the technique quite well:




Killing my chook

Everything went well.

As the video explained, the chookie really did relax when she was laid down on the ground.

She clearly wasn't stressed or upset at all, and that made me feel happier, as I laid the spanner across her neck, feeling like a medieval headsman, and wondering if I should wear a hood or something.

I did wear gloves, but that was for hygeine as I was handling a pretty old, crabby chicken - in case she scratched me. And I wore workboots, to help with the stamping down / breaking her neck bit.

Before I lost my nerve, I stepped quickly down on the spanner, and I felt her neck snap. You could really feel it, and hear it too.

But then something I didn't expect - she started flapping.

I know I should have expected it, but I didn't. And so I pulled even harder on her feet. I was worried I hadn't done it properly, or enough, and maybe she was suffering, or only half dead. So I really yanked at her feet. And her whole head came off (it was pretty gross and horror-show-esque), and blood started spurting around a bit.

It wasn't very "bloodless", let me tell you.

Sorry about the gory post - two of them in a row now! I'm really not a bloodthirsty person, but it's just where we are, and the time of year (autumn, harvest time etc.), and all that. And it's what happened.

She was still flapping around, and the remains of her were not nice at all.

I kept telling myself that a chook with its head completely severed must be dead, and it was just the nervous system doing its final shindig, and all that, but it really made me shake and feel nauseous. I think anyone would feel a bit queasy their first kill.

But I didn't look away. I had to do the job, and I did it.

The chook is dead now. Her body is in the cucumber house, and once things dry up a bit, I'll go move her to the compost pile.

Eventually all but a couple of the chickens will be killed in the same way, to make way for what we hope will be a new hatching, coming soon. I'm not looking forward to it. But I'll do it.

So that was my first chicken killing.

I'd use the "broomstick method" again definitely, because I really think she didn't suffer at all, but next time, I wouldn't yank quite so hard! Chickens really are delicate little animals.


Not the last of the killing on Hazeltree Farm

That's not the last of the killing on Hazeltree Farm for now though. On Monday the Home Kill guy is coming to dispatch the male lambs, who will be going to various freezers around Dunedin. I'm glad I don't have to kill them, but yes, I will be watching, bearing witness to the end of their short, but happy little lives.

That's what a responsible farmer does.

But I don't think I'll blog about it. I think my next post might be about flowers...or bunnies...or something a little less grisly than headless chickens.

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Have a lovely day!