I had an unruly, violent roo that had to go, but I wanted to do it in a humane manner. I took a clear plastic storage container with a snap-on lid (15″w x 12″d x 12″ high) and drilled one 1/4″ hole near the bottom on one end and another near the top at the other end.
I bought a box of whippets from the local smoke shop and a large punching balloon. I put the roo into the container. He wasn’t thrilled but he wasn’t traumatized. I used an N2O “cracker” to fill the balloon with a couple of canisters worth of gas and then pressed it against the lower hole. Because N2O is heavier than regular air, it slowly displaced the air, which exited thru the top hole. I repeated the process with several more cartridges, sealing the lower hole with tape while refilling the balloon. After about 5 minutes the roo sagged to the bottom and began to lose consciousness. I kept adding more gas because I didn’t really know what amount would be lethal (if at all). After the roo had been out for several minutes it began it’s death thrashing and then it was over.
I found this to be a very simple and kindly way to put it down and I’m curious what others think. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of research on this technique. The humane society doesn’t consider N2O to be an acceptable euthanasia technique because it doesn’t always cause 100% loss of consciousness (same reason it’s not used alone for surgery) but it certainly killed my roo off and there didn’t appear to be any stress beyond not wanting to be put into the container. The only relevant research I found was from studies done on using it to kill piglets and it was found to be effective and not distressing.
He was a beautiful lavender ameraucana, btw, and he lived his best life right up until the end. For 2 years he owned 2 1/2 acres of bug-infested chicken heaven, eating spiders and having s** every day. But then he started punching large holes in anyone who walked by. I loved him but when you have 2 little kids, that’s a deal-breaker.
