How Can a Chicken Run Around with Its Head Cut Off?

Butchering chickens is a bloody task for anyone. If you are new to this, then butchering animals proves difficult because you often experience hesitation or guilt, especially if you create an emotional bond with your chicken. However, if you avoid taking appropriate precautions and techniques to remove the chicken's head, then you risk killing your chicken inhumanely and creating a big mess.

  1. Headless Chickens

    • Releasing the chicken after you cut off its head causes it to move because of reflexes from nerve endings once connected to the brain and brain stem.Therefore, you see the chicken running, or flopping, around without a head. They only simulate running if their legs kick the ground or another object to propel them forward. The chicken dies momentarily, but seeing a chicken move around without a head traumatizes some people and seems inhumane. Tie together or hold onto the chicken's feet once you slice off the head to prevent this occurrence.

    Proper Tools

    • Use sharp knives or axes when butchering your chickens. Dull knives will not quickly pierce a chicken's jugular vein, causing immense pain and a bloodier mess to clean. Kill cones are also efficient tools to prepare your chicken for slaughter. A kill cone serves as a holding mechanism shaped like a cone. Place the chicken upside down in the cone, fitting its head into the cone's smaller end with its body facing upward, allowing you to make a proper cut and to prevent the chicken from escaping.

    Slaughtering Techniques

    • Sharpen your knife before use. Hang your chicken at least 3 feet above ground, and either cut off its head in one motion, or make a fatal slit across its jugular vein. If you use an ax, find a surface able to absorb the ax's blow, such as a tabletop, workbench or tree stump. As you hold the chicken in place, pull down on its feet to expose its entire neck, and quickly bring down the ax. Continue holding onto the chicken's feet to prevent it from escaping.

    Humane Slaughter Practice

    • Prepare your chickens for quick and painless deaths. Humane slaughter practices prevent chickens from suffering. Avoid holding chickens for extensive time periods in the kill cone. This arouses nerves and prolongs their fate. Also, dull instruments may prolong their death because they cannot make fatal cuts. Most important, slicing the jugular vein instead of the windpipe prevents additional blood spillage, pain and flopping.