Humanely kill chickens for consumption

[Meathead87]

Now I know this post will get the bleeding hearts screaming but it is what it is.

We farm chickens and have for a long time. All our retarted, sick or dead birds go to our snakes, this we have also done for many years and our snakes are beyond happy and healthy.

To this point we have fed mainly live birds.

My question is how does one humanely kill their rats or birds for consumption?

I'm wanting to stockpile as we have so many birds and they grow so quickly, a full grown 4kg rooster takes our lot awhile to swallow if at all in some cases.

 

[dragonlover1]

I can't remember the brand but the gas cylinders used to fizz up the cordial is how they kill rats. I think it's CO2

 

[Sdaji]

There are several methods for killing rats. Gassing with CO2 is probably the most popular. It is far from the most humane but for most people it is the least unpleasant because the person doing the job doesn't have to be touching or even looking at what they're doing while the rats are dying, and to feel better about it everyone says it's the most humane method.

Anyone doing it on scale and using gas will use a proper gas cylinder, small scale backyarders often use something like a SodaStream unit (that's no doubt what dragonlover is talking about).

The method I used to use was a type of cervical dislocation. I found it faster and certainly more humane than gassing, but it was for some reason not easy to teach people. Of all the people I tried to teach it to only two were able to do it (it didn't seem to be much about strength, some unable to do it were blokes with hands at least as strong as mine and the two people who did learn had less hand strength than I do). There are other CV techniques but I found them to be slower or more dangerous (it would encourage angry rats to bite the killer).

If you're like most people you'll probably want to go for gassing. Either rig up a SodaStream unit if you're small scale or get a CO2 cylinder from BOC or Supagas etc if you're larger scale.

 

[Harpo]

I gotta second @Sdaji bigtime, CV is the best way if you can do it right. I learned on mice and can turn them out like a lightswitch - it's very, very quick and they get zero time to suffer.

I find different techniques are best for different sp. and it's best to learn off someone who is good at it, some folks just don't like doing it either which is fair enough. It's cheaper and quicker and more humane than CO2.

 

[Sdaji]

I gotta second @Sdaji bigtime, CV is the best way if you can do it right. I learned on mice and can turn them out like a lightswitch - it's very, very quick and they get zero time to suffer.

I find different techniques are best for different sp. and it's best to learn off someone who is good at it, some folks just don't like doing it either which is fair enough. It's cheaper and quicker and more humane than CO2.

Mice are so easy, it's like they were deliberately designed with a built in permanent off switch.

Rats require more skill and some amount of strength but if you can do it the cervical dislocation methods are still faster for the human and more humane than gassing.

 

[-Adam-]

Nothing of value to add, but just to say what I love about this place is the 'fair dinkum no nonsense' posts - even if they're not 'politically correct' (so to speak).

OP comes in expecting to have bleeding hearts get upset, and instead get a level response that advises the most common approach (which is considered by many uninformed the most humane), but then goes on against popular opinion to explain further that it's not - but it's handy anyway - and then offers another option too. (And no one gets upset). Freakin awesome!

FWIW - I'd hate to go by CO2 poisoning. I wont go into the details here except to say our body detects and reacts to CO2 (it's actually what causes us to breathe - not lack of oxygen as most people mistakenly believe). If you have the ability (and probably funding coz I expect it would be more expensive) - I think nitrogen gas would be far more effective . Unlike CO2 - our body doesn't react to it. Helium is another gas that would work - but now you're talking big bikkys! Even the Nitrogen is probably impractical - but if you're after the most humane - apart from cervical dislocation - I think it would be the next in line.

 

[Sdaji]

Nothing of value to add, but just to say what I love about this place is the 'fair dinkum no nonsense' posts - even if they're not 'politically correct' (so to speak).

OP comes in expecting to have bleeding hearts get upset, and instead get a level response that advises the most common approach (which is considered by many uninformed the most humane), but then goes on against popular opinion to explain further that it's not - but it's handy anyway - and then offers another option too. (And no one gets upset). Freakin awesome!

FWIW - I'd hate to go by CO2 poisoning. I wont go into the details here except to say our body detects and reacts to CO2 (it's actually what causes us to breathe - not lack of oxygen as most people mistakenly believe). If you have the ability (and probably funding coz I expect it would be more expensive) - I think nitrogen gas would be far more effective . Unlike CO2 - our body doesn't react to it. Helium is another gas that would work - but now you're talking big bikkys! Even the Nitrogen is probably impractical - but if you're after the most humane - apart from cervical dislocation - I think it would be the next in line.

I'm glad you liked my posts, although they're not always so popular and sometimes even the moderators delete what I post because people sook about it, and because of that I post less than I otherwise would and avoid some topics entirely.

As for helium, it's quite difficult to use because it's lighter than air. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air (it's actually quite fun to pour it into cups and tip scales etc, even though it's invisible you can pour it much like a liquid). Nitrogen is slightly lighter than the average weight of air which makes it a bit more difficult to contain than CO2, but one of the main reasons other than weight which makes CO2 work better than inert gases is that CO2 binds very strongly to haemoglobin, which makes it unable to transport oxygen to the body. And yep, as you say, that also makes it quite an horrific way to die. Inert gases do not bind to haemoglobin at all, which makes them extremely difficult to kill rats with, but you're entirely correct that if you did put the work in to make an effective gas chamber with inert gas which excluded oxygen, the inert gases would be more humane, even though they would take longer.

Good point about how animals detect and react to CO2. It's really quite sad that CO2 gassing is wrongly considered to be the most humane option and is generally called the industry standard. When I had a business producing feed rodents, some of my customers said they would only buy gassed rats and not mechanically killed rats for humane reasons. I always said I wasn't going to torture the animals just because of popular misinformation. Most people ended up coming back because my prices were good and my quality was much better than the competitors, haha. It's really quite sad to see rats freaking out and bouncing around in desperation when being gassed, and people just making excuses to say CO2 is the most humane because it's the most convenient for people who lack the skill to use mechanical methods and don't care about causing suffering if they don't have to watch it happen.

 

[Herpetology]

It would be great to be able to dislocate the necks of 500mice a week, but it’s really not efficient time wise and if done improperly (which would result from time to time due to being in a time rush), causes magnitudes more suffering than a blast of co2. Single digit numbers of animals, go ahead
Yes it is sad to watch them (rats included) bounce and kick around after being gassed, but it’s literally for about 3-5 seconds before they pass out and eventually stop moving.

 

[dragonlover1]

It would be great to be able to dislocate the necks of 500mice a week, but it’s really not efficient time wise and if done improperly (which would result from time to time due to being in a time rush), causes magnitudes more suffering than a blast of co2. Single digit numbers of animals, go ahead
Yes it is sad to watch them (rats included) bounce and kick around after being gassed, but it’s literally for about 3-5 seconds before they pass out and eventually stop moving.

good point, it may be more humane to snap necks but if you have to euthanize hundreds then the gas is a more productive method. Sometimes productivity has to take precedence over sentimentality

 

[Harpo]

I had a friend who worked volunteer at the Australian Reptile Park (the old one, before it burned down) and it was his job to CV hundreds of chicks (by the bucket load). I don't know if they still do, it was many years ago now. I don't think he really enjoyed doing it.

 

[-Adam-]

I think there would be very few who would enjoy doing it (honestly - if people got a kick out if it - I'd be concerned) - but like many unpleasant jobs - it's a job that needs to be done.

As for the gassing - Just to clarify - I don't have a problem with it being used. I understand the economics, the practicality and the efficiency. But at the same time I am a strong supporter of truth - especially when it's inconvenient. From my personal experience it seems there's too many people these days choosing to stick their heads under their pillows or believe a fantasy instead of understanding the truth because it eases their conscience and others who fear retaliation for saying something others are upset with.

That's why I was impressed and commended Sdaji for his post. It was informative, factual (even though against popular belief / or what's trendy) , and yet non-judgmental in that his response too was without opposition to CO2 (and even recommended it from how I read it for the OP's situation) - just stating the truth along the way. The types of responses I'd love to see more of - in all aspects of life.

Good points re helium. Besides being a total waste (and expensive) - being so much lighter than air would have it's challenges. Interesting about Nigtrogen too - that's one gas I wasn't aware was lighter than air. Always good to learn something new, regardless of how old I get. Thanks all.

 

[Sdaji]

I think there would be very few who would enjoy doing it (honestly - if people got a kick out if it - I'd be concerned) - but like many unpleasant jobs - it's a job that needs to be done.

As for the gassing - Just to clarify - I don't have a problem with it being used. I understand the economics, the practicality and the efficiency. But at the same time I am a strong supporter of truth - especially when it's inconvenient. From my personal experience it seems there's too many people these days choosing to stick their heads under their pillows or believe a fantasy instead of understanding the truth because it eases their conscience and others who fear retaliation for saying something others are upset with.

That's why I was impressed and commended Sdaji for his post. It was informative, factual (even though against popular belief / or what's trendy) , and yet non-judgmental in that his response too was without opposition to CO2 (and even recommended it from how I read it for the OP's situation) - just stating the truth along the way. The types of responses I'd love to see more of - in all aspects of life.

Good points re helium. Besides being a total waste (and expensive) - being so much lighter than air would have it's challenges. Interesting about Nigtrogen too - that's one gas I wasn't aware was lighter than air. Always good to learn something new, regardless of how old I get. Thanks all.

Nitrogen is only marginally lighter than air (air is about 80% nitrogen anyway), but oxygen (most of the other 20% of air) is heavier, so the nitrogen won't keep it out. CO2 is significantly heavier than air so oxygen can't passively sink into it.

Herpetology: I used to do hundreds of rodents per cull session and found mechanical methods to be faster; I put a heck of a lot of work into being lazy, and I got through a cleaning/feeding/culling session in less than half the time it takes most people to do a similar sized colony. Time efficiency was one of the reasons I liked it. You need to sort them anyway so I just killed as I went rather than sorting them before or after killing. It actually removed a step in the procedure of getting live rodents in the colonies to frozen rodents in a bag. You speak of the danger of making an error with CV methods but then say gassing is completed in 3-5 seconds, as though CV is problematic and gassing is always done perfectly - I would pretty confidently say the average time is more than 3-5 seconds and countless times I've seen it take far longer, not to mention all the times they aren't actually dead and either wake up and need to be regassed, or wake up in bags then get frozen to death while packed in with their dead bagmates. I have seen more horrors in gassing (including by professionals when I was working in animal houses etc) than I have from CV methods, despite having seen orders of magnitude more CV kills performed. After killing hundreds of thousands of animals I'm not especially squeamish about the whole concept, but even I have some pretty horrific images which repeat in my head of terrified rats panicking and desperately trying to escape, frightened out of their minds, often for a minute or more. I've killed animals ranging from insects to rodents to pigs, buffalo etc, and the most horrific scenes I've seen in non sadistic deliberate animal killing has been from gassed animals. Also, when hundreds are being done, the reality is that people pile hundreds of them on top of each other and they sit there until the sorting is complete. It's not like hundreds of live rats are simultaneously placed in a spacious tub and instantly gassed - the collection procedure often takes hours and typically takes at least 15 minutes or so. When you're doing CV as you go, the unpleasant 'all crammed in together, waiting to die' step is entirely eliminated.

Maybe human squeamishness is a valid concern, and it's definitely true that more skill is required to kill using CV methods than gas, so gas is probably the best option for a lot of people, I wouldn't say no one should use gas, but a skilled person can definitely use CV more quickly and more humanely than anyone can use gas.