Efficacy of a Novel Mechanical Cervical Dislocation Device in Comparison to Manual Cervical Dislocation in Layer Chickens

摘要

Simple SummaryOn-farm euthanasia of diseased or injured chickens is a common task within the poultry industry. For animal welfare, the aim of any euthanasia technique is to achieve rapid loss of sensibility, for the process to cause minimal pain, and for death to follow quickly. Manual cervical dislocation (separating the skull from the spine by hand) is a common method for killing poultry on farms, but it can be aesthetically displeasing. Therefore, different tools for neck dislocation (separating the skull from the spine by mechanical device) are developed as alternative euthanasia methods. These tools need scientific assessment for their effectiveness and humaneness. The Koechner Euthanasia Device (KED) (Koechner MFG. CO., INC, USA) is commercially available as a mechanical cervical dislocation tool for poultry. We compared the efficacy of KED with manual cervical dislocation based on time to brain death (irreversible insensibility) and degree of damage to the brain and neck in anesthetized chickens. The anesthetic agents reduced any distress and pain associated with the killing technique. Our results indicated that KED resulted in less damage to the brain, causing longer times to brain death and cardiac arrest in comparison to manual cervical dislocation. We suggest that manual cervical dislocation is more efficient and humane for layer chicken euthanasia than KED.