Hi y'all. I recently re-read my back issues of Countryside. There was an article about feeding your chickens grain soaked in vodka or gin, that they then get drunk, fall down and pass out, thus making butchering easier. Has anyone tried this at all? Has anyone done it with rabbits specifically? The article said that it doesn't hurt the chickens any if you don't get them all done, that they just sober up after about 30 minutes. I thought this was interesting, as it would eliminate their short few seconds of fear just prior to that ax! And it would sure make butchering rabbits easier. Thanks everyone.

-- Katie (ktthegardener@yahoo.com), October 18, 2000

Answers

Response to Drunk chickens

I don't remember seeing that article, Katie, nor have I tried it. But I heard many years ago that if you got the chicken drunk first, it would be relaxed when killed, which made the meat more tender and better tasting (maybe because there was no adrenaline flood?). It'll be interesting to see what experience there is out there.

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), October 19, 2000.

Response to Drunk chickens

I do this with pigs, without the grain. Butchering an empty stomach is easier than a full one. Do rabbits like booze as much as pigs do? It does make a sweet tender meat and a sweet complacent victim, but that's the natural state of most rabbits anyway. Perhaps *you* need a few shots before swinging the ax to make the job easier? I don't eat rabbit, but when I've helped butcher them, we bop them on the head and they are pretty relaxed and hold still for the knife.

The only hazzard we found with getting animals drunk, is if they get upset and run around, they get very bruised up and do a lot of damage to themselves. I won't butcher them if they're bruised. I wait at least two weeks and try it again.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), October 19, 2000.

Response to Drunk chickens

Hello Katie, the article brought back some nostalgia for me and I have used grain soaked in alcohol. It does work for small batches of fowl but if your butchering a bunch you want to seperate out a few to feed the grain. There's not enough alcohol in the grain to go around and it evaporates rather quickly if let out in the open. My grandmother would throw out soaked grain when she wanted to fix quail or dove. The birds would eat it and then they could only wobble around which made it easy for her to capture the evening meal. Back then my grandparents and parents also had access to some stronger alcohol, which made it alot quicker working.

-- Judy E Simmons (judyesimmons@hotmail.com), October 20, 2000.

Response to Drunk chickens

I did try it with my ducks after i had read the Countryside article. They didn't pass out, but they were easier to catch, and their innards smelled of vodka, which was a nice change. The meat may have been more tender, I think it was, but I've been cooking them differently every time and there are other factors like age and weight etc. I think it may make the experience less horrific for them.

-- snoozy (allen@oz.net), October 20, 2000.

Response to Drunk chickens

Katie, I don't know about feeding perfectly good booze to livestock, but once I did give my chickens the mash from a batch of orange wine. I went out later to lock them up for the night and found most of them out for the count. They couldn't even stand up. About one-third of them died. I'll bet they died happy.

-- john and pat james (jjames@n-jcenter.com), October 24, 2000.

Response to Drunk chickens

Thanks everyone!!! This is so great - now I know from your responses that it does work and I will try it. You all are great!

-- Katie (ktthegardener@yahoo.com), October 28, 2000.

sci-fi paranoia for the day:

i hope that someday if the robots ever decide to power their computers with us a la the Matrix (see salon.com on bio-electronic experimentation) that these hints on getting animals sloshed before slaughter do not come in handy to them.

tasty bananas, bertram

-- lonesome cowboy bertram (kajagoogoo23@hotmail.com), February 28, 2001.

I remember the article where he got the chickens drunk so he could catch them and put them back in the pen. This sounds like a good idea, what percent acholol do you use. How much for a rabbit? I wonder if wine would work, the meat sure would taste good I imagine with wine. Marinated. Franzia Rabbit. Red or White? Chilled or room temperature?

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), February 28, 2001.