Kat since it is the season. Rescue a couple short traffic cones from being run over. Cut the top 3 inches or so off. Invert them and secure to a couple of 2x4's they make great chicken holders while dispatching the birds. Being wedged inside the cone they don't bruise up at all and they dont fall out of the holder.
Yes! James works for ODOT (Oregon Dept. of Transportation) so he 'rescued' a couple of cones for me last year! It really is a great way to hold the chickens and keep them from flopping everywhere. We have a horse shower stall in the barn, so we have the cones secured to the wall (with easy access to the hose to spray everything down).
That looks good. I have to ask, are you a "chop the head off" person or "grab it by the head and sling it around till the head falls off" person?
I'm a "chopper".
I actually hadn't really ever heard of the sling-it-around method until Smokin' Don had posted about his 'tough Aunt from Georgia'! I didn't grow up around farm life, so 99% of what I've learned is through books, blogs and You-Tube, and apparently neck wringing isn't as in vogue these days, since I don't remember seeing that suggested.
With these chunky chickens, I'm not sure my wrists are quite strong enough to sling them around till their heads pop off! I'd be afraid of botching it and ending up with a "Mike" like Doc Holly mentioned earlier on Don's thread: (
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/history ) and I am just not the sort of woman to have enough patience to feed a headless chicken with an eyedropper for years on end!!