If an animal health check raises suspicions of a flock-wide disease or if severely ill individual birds with unclear clinical signs are identified, the attending veterinarian should be consulted promptly for further diagnostic investigation. Sick or injured ducks may need to be removed from the flock and housed in a separate pen for treatment and appropriate care.
DLG Leaflet 477, ‘Handling sick and injured domestic and commercial poultry’, provides guidance on deciding when a sick animal should be euthanised and when there is a chance of recovery. It also addresses the possible placement of injured animals in a isolation pen. The following section discusses how to carry out humane euthanasia.
Procedure for humane euthanasia
Ducks identified as requiring slaughter must be killed as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering.
The duck to be killed must be handled calmly and gently until the anaesthetic takes effect, to prevent the animal from becoming agitated.
Every duck must be stunned before killing. Immediately after successful stunning, the animal must be killed using a suitable method (the standard practice is neck breaking).
The functionality of the equipment to be used must be checked before each use.
Stunning and killing should not be carried out in the middle of the flock and, where possible, without disturbing the other animals (e.g. in the pen’s antechamber).
Procedure
- Capturing the animal to be killed (see Chapter 3 – Humane handling of individual animals)
- Restraining
- Restricting the animal’s movement so that it cannot evade the procedure and the stunning can be carried out safely.
- Stunning
- Every vertebrate must be rendered unconscious and insensitive to pain prior to killing (Section 4(1) of the Animal Welfare Act1).
- Killing
- Killing must follow immediately after stunning.
- Killing must be carried out competently and safely, without delay and without causing fear or pain to the animal concerned. Keepers who stun and kill muscovy ducks on a professional or commercial basis as part of emergency killing must hold a certificate of competence for stunning and killing.
- The effectiveness of the killing must be checked:
- Relaxation of the limbs
- no breathing
- no heartbeat/pulse
- Emptying of the cloaca
- Disposal
- It must be ensured that the animal is dead before the carcass is disposed of.
- Carcasses must be disposed of immediately and safely in the carcass storage facility.
Permitted methods of stunning
Up to 5 kg live weight
- A sufficiently forceful, well-aimed blunt blow to the head may be used as a stunning method. It must be delivered with a hard, blunt and heavy object appropriate to the size of the animal. The object must be brought towards the animal’s head, rather than the animal being brought towards the object. However, this method is quite prone to error, which is why the methods listed below are generally recommended.
No weight limit
- Penetrating bolt shot
- Non-penetrating bolt shot
- Electrical stunning
The effectiveness of the stunning must be checked before killing:
- Pupil dilated / no blinking
- Touching the eye produces no reaction (no eyelid closure reflex)
- Neck muscles flaccid
- No vocalisation
- No directed movements
- Vigorous wing flapping
If there are signs of inadequate anaesthesia (e.g. eyelid closure reflex, attempts to sit up, directed gaze, lifting of the head), a second anaesthetic must be administered immediately.
Permitted methods of killing (TSchlV)
- Destruction of the spinal cord caused by a broken neck (fracture of the cervical spine between the skull and the first cervical vertebra due to manual hyperextension)
- To do this, the index and middle fingers are spread apart to form a V. The head is grasped from behind and above between the two fingers and separated from the first cervical vertebra with a sudden jerk. The head is bent slightly backwards and upwards. Care must be taken to ensure a straight line of pull to avoid suffering.)
- Permitted manually for animals weighing less than 3 kg live weight (The neck is hyperextended with a sudden movement of the hand, severing the spinal cord directly behind the head.)
- using pliers (mechanical, designed so that the spinal column can be severed quickly and safely without great effort) for animals weighing 3 kg or more
- Blood drainage (not recommended for disease control reasons)
- Electrical cardiac arrest
The onset of death is carefully monitored:
- A palpable gap between the head and cervical vertebrae and
- No eyelid closure reflex (the eye remains open when a finger is brought close)
- No breathing
- No directed movements
If breathing, eye reflexes and/or directed movements are observed after killing, the stunning and killing procedure must be repeated (see Checking for stunning)