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DEATH BY WOOD CHIPPER
“Death by Wood Chipper!” An ugly headline.
My neighbor Mike is a 1,000 yard sharp shooter. He has offered his services on many occasions to ranchers whose property is overrun by prairie dogs.
He sets up a platform on his pickup and blasts away 400-700 yards from the unsuspecting varmints. It is because the shooter, and therefore the noise, is so distant, that the other prairie dogs are not frightened into their holes. It allows the population to be reduced.
He uses what is called a ballistic tip bullet. It is designed to penetrate the skin and immediately expand inside the beast. Death is instantaneous and dramatic. The prairie dog explodes like a hand grenade. By professional standards it would fit the definition of a humane method of euthanasia; no nervous anticipation, no pain, no guilt. Which leads me to the wood chipper headline.
During the recent exotic Newcastle disease outbreak in California it was necessary to destroy hundreds of thousands of chickens, millions of fowl, jillions of potential nuggets. The affected birds could not be used for human consumption. Imagine if you will, the magnitude of the process and disposal problem. To put this in perspective, say you had on pet chicken in your backyard that the U.S.D.A. required you kill and dispose of. What method of slaughter would you use? Do you have a sharp axe and a tree stump? Probably not. Maybe use the twelve gauge and pick feathers out of the B.B.Q., arborvitae and flowerbed for the next two months? Chase him around the yard with a butterfly net and wring his neck? Plan a boating accident in the wading pool, or back over him in the driveway? (How about tie him in the drivers’ seat, pull the car in the garage and leave the engine running.)
Then, once you’ve done the deed, where are you going to put him? In the trash? Bury him in the backyard? Build a funeral pyre, call the rendering truck, ($45.00 pick up fee), and take him to the landfill? Think about it. Just one chicken. But what if you had twenty-five? That would take a lot of buckshot and a big hole.
Now imagine 30,000 head of condemned chickens. One thinking California veterinarian authorized “death by wood chipper.” He was criticized by the local animal welfare group, for…I’m not quite sure. Maybe because it sounds so awful!
Yet the DVM said death was instantaneous. They were immediately mulched in with dirt to make fertile soil and it was cost efficient. I tend to agree that it would be humane if done properly. It might be a distasteful method in other species, but considering the IQ of poultry, even the 26,000th chicken in line would have no clue what’s coming. It’s like, “cluck, cluck, cluck, say what?” BZZZZT!
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