The Day I Did Not Kill a Chicken

In 2018, the year I began my flock, I lost half of them (about seven hens) to a terrible virus called Marek’s. Even though they had been vaccinated, my birds began to exhibit signs of the disease–splayed legs, curled toes, drunken walk, etc. I took the first two victims to the vet, where I received the diagnosis and ended up paying about $100 each time to euthanize the birds. I cried, and the vet said she’d never met anyone who cried over a chicken.

After the first two, I realized I couldn’t afford to take every sick bird to the vet, so I looked for easy, humane ways to euthanize suffering hens. I finally settled on carbon dioxide, which you can achieve by settling your bird in an airtight container, adding a chunk of dry ice, and then adding some water and snapping on the lid. The ice produces carbon dioxide, the birds suffocate, and it all takes place without the chicken owner suffering . . . too much.

But after euthanizing several birds in this way, my vet told me it wasn’t really humane–suffocation rarely is. It’s quick, but not quick enough. Oy.

Fortunately, after I lost half my birds, an agent at the state agricultural department told me that the rest of my birds should survive. And every time I’ve hatched chicks since, I vaccinate them against Marek’s on the day of hatching and again ten days later. And I haven’t had a case of Marek’s since . . . until last week.

Sunni, one of my grown hens, displayed the usual symptoms–one leg splayed out back, straight as a ramrod, the other one with curled toes. She couldn’t walk. I put her in a separate pen with food and water and watched her, realizing that if she did have Marek’s–and I was 98 percent sure she did–she could infect my other birds who hadn’t been exposed in 2018 (I don’t exactly trust vaccinations any more).

I went into the house and searched for other ways to humanely kill a chicken. Turns out the preferred method is called “cervical dislocation,” and this is how you do it–you hold the chicken’s legs with one hand, draw her across your body, and take the head and neck with your dominant hand. Then you tilt the head back and turn it, popping the head free of the spine, thus severing the spinal cord. The hen dies instantly, though there is usually some residual flapping and fluttering.

The next morning, Sunni was no better. So, determined to put her out of her misery and keep my other birds safe, I sang, “I am woman, hear me roar” and went outside to be a Responsible Chicken Keeper. I followed the instructions, held her head just so, and twisted. Then I looked into her eyes, expecting to see still, dilated pupils.

Sunni blinked at me. Oops.

So I tried it again. No change, just more blinking.

After about three tries, I gave up. There’s another way to do it–you lay the hen on the ground, place a broom handle just beneath the skull, and pull the head back until it snaps. I tried it, then removed the broom and looked at Sunni. Gasping, she gave me a look that clearly said, “What in the world are you trying to do, kill me?”

Some of my new hatchlings.

Oy. I didn’t have the heart to try again, so I put Sunni back in her special cage and decided that I’d try again the next day–with an axe. Surely I could pull that off, and it was just as humane, though probably one of the hardest methods for a chicken keeper (the proverbial chicken with its head cut off? . . .)

But the next morning, Sunni was up and walking on two legs. And the next morning she was eating and walking and squawking at the girls in the next pen. So the next morning I put her back with the others and now I’m happy to say that she seems fully recovered. So it must not have been Marek’s. No other birds appear sick. Maybe she had simply sprained her ankle . . .

So I still don’t have a foolproof way to euthanize a chicken. But as long as my girls are healthy, I’m good with that.