In the UK you are required to stun the bird before slitting the throat -just bleeding it to death is considered (and I think is) inhumane. We shoot ours with a full power air pistol to the head just behind the eyes. This stuns and kills simultaneously. The wall mounted despatchers, which crush the neck and sever the spinal column, are now out of favour because it is believed the head remains alive and conscious for up to 20 seconds. In our experience a bird is dead when the convulsions start. These are instantaneous with any bird successfully killed and the convulsions can last for up to two minutes with a strong young cockerel. We have never failed to get a clean kill with a wall mounted despatcher, but the hand held ones cannot give you sufficient power to kill anything but pigeons or young bantams -the force required is considerable and could pull the despatcher off the wall! We once only stunned a cockerel with a shot (just went limp so just unconscious)and it had to have a second. I have seen a video of 'the broomstick method' where in my opinion the bird was suffocated to death and the spinal column was not broken -sickening it was, by a self proclaimed 'expert'.
They are hung by their legs for half an hour to drain, with the wings tied up (or they don't drain) and plucked immediately after. They are then gutted, which takes some care and a very sharp knife. They then go into the fridge to rest for a few days before consumption (otherwise they are tough) or they are bagged and go into the freezer.
We separate our cockerels as they 'show' into a small run and large coop. The fighting can start at 16 weeks and in our last hatch the poor victim was despatched first. Then we start at 20 weeks with the first 'trouble maker' and the last no later than 26 weeks. Each is separated off with no food and water for 12 hours, so overnight really. We try to despatch in a dark place early morning, before they are fully awake. Takes two to do a humane job. One holds the bird wrapped in a towel (the wings are strong and can cause injury), the other despatches.
Be careful with an air pistol. I shot myself in the finger and there was more blood on the floor from me than the bird! My mistake holding a pullet's head still. Cockerels just freeze. There is another way with a gun called the traffic cone method. The bird is dropped upside down into an inverted traffic cone. That constrains the convulsions. The head sticks through the base so it can be shot. Don't like that method as it must distress the bird a lot.
Hope that helps KittyKat. If all this sounds a bit barbaric just remember meat birds in the UK live in sheds and are killed at 5 ½ weeks by being hung upside down on a conveyor belt, passed through a water trough to electrocute and stun them and then have their throats cut. Some miss the trough. Not much of a life or death!
