How should I cull a chick in a humane way? Thinkin of just using a axe but don't know..... it sounds so yucky and sad. I don't need to thank gosh but I might sometime in the future. Also CJr I hope you read this because I wanted to tell you you are one of the nicest and smartest people I have met! Do you have an AOL screenname? If so what is it? Also I have a chick with crooked middle claws!!! LOL he looks so funny. Their both turned in. Theres nothing I can do I guess and it doesn't affect him. WEll seeya guyz later!!! THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!!!!! Jesse Larbey AKA Jessman

Hi Jessman, there are complete directions here on different ways to cull a chick. Use the "KeyWord" search (right there to your left) to find out everything you want to know about culling chicks.

Also there's a website that explains how to fix crooked toes and spraddle legs. The address is:

http://www.peafowl.org/ARTICLES/1/

I used the information there to fix 3 guinea keets whose legs were in real bad shape. The site is specific for peachicks, but it works just as well for any baby poultry.

Jessman, Thank you for the compliments, but I think I h ave said before--that I can not hold a candle to Rokimoto, Leee, Marsa and others. (But I do try to be nice, and it comes easy with practice!) I don't know what a screenname is, but I have a webpage for my Bantams: www.dutchbantams.com CJR

If you have a screen name in AOL then you can chat with other AOL and AIM users. Its a great way to give other farmers advice about raising poultry. There are other chat software such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Instant Messenger, ICQ, etc. Finally, you can also download a program called ICQ that lets you chat with ALL of the other instant messenger software.

CJR you still didn't say anything about how to kill baby chicks humanily. I've read that suffacating them or breakin their neck but neither sounds appealing. I would like to kill them instantly. Maybe I could just use the old axe or just shock it. I don't want for it to suffer at all when kilin it.

There is no appealing way. If the chick is small, throw it with forceful throw onto hard surface. Blunt force trauma, instant death, no blood. I hunt and butcher all my own animals(well I used to) and the killing is always a hard thing to do. If anyone enjoys it, they are sick.Its just what has to be done.

Jessman, If the weather is below freezing outside, I have just left a chick out. Severe cold stops life for a day old chick almost instantly, the colder the faster, no sound, no movement, just quietly and quickly expires. But I am lucky to have a Vet tech friend who usually can come to vaccinate my chicks for Marek's Disease. She loves chickens! And if I should have one needing euthanizing, she just separates the head and spine, by cupping one hand around the head at the neck the other hand around the shoulders, quickly pulling them apart severs the spine at the base of the head Instant death and almost no movement. The axe is the same thing, but requires blood letting--either is sad to most of us, but is acceptable. CJR

I read an article in the JBBA newsletter in which you can take a shovel, lift back a shovel full of dirt, drop the undesired chick in the hole, let the dirt flip back into the hole on top of the chick. Pull the shovel out of the dirt and quickly stomp the dirt, killing the chick. I don't know about anyone else, but that is more appealing to me than snapping its head. Robbpa is right....it's not a lot of fun any way you look at it.

There are two very humane, easy ways to cull chicks. One is to put it in a plastic bag and put the bag to the car exhaust, it only takes minutes and it will peacefully go to sleep and die (don't do this in an enclosed garage or you may go too). The other way is to put it in a ziplock bag or tupperware and put it in the freezer, once again it will go to sleep and then die. I've only had to euthenize one chick and it wasn't easy on me mentally, but sometimes it just has to be done. Good luck.

You can also put the chick in a plastic ziplock bag.
Spray some starter fluid (for cars) on a cotton ball; toss the cotton ball in the bag with the chick. Close the bag and, in less than a minute, the chick will go to sleep...permanently.

This is my method......Find a small piece of 2 x 4 wood and place it in the bottom of a plastic grocery bag. Lay the chick/bantam chicken on its side with its neck right over the wood piece and kind of close the bag around it. Get the knife in there give it a good cut right onto the 2 x 4 wood. Hold the chicken down while keeping the bag closed until the movement stops. Tie the bag closed (2 x 4 and all) and throw it away.

I don't like looking at it and so far this has been the quickest and least bloody method I've found.

I hate hate hate having to ever do this job. It is the worst part of responsible farming.