My dad raised about 100 once, just plain old white chickens. For meat. (There were 8 kids in our family.)
Whenever the grandparents would come for Sunday dinner, 3 or 4 would get the ax and we’d have fresh fried chicken for dinner.
Dad’s mom once watched as Dad took the ax to some chickens. He’d hold them down on a board and whack them off, trying to get away from the bird so he wouldn’t get splattered.
Gram remarked, “Why do you do it like that, Bill? Let me have one of those birds and I’ll show you how to kill a chicken.”
With that, she grabbed the next bird to go, swung it around in a great arc like a baseball pitcher winding up for the pitch, the head separated from the body, the body landed some distance away, and the splatter was then relegated to a safe distance, and all Gram had to do then was drop the head.
If you have ever heard the phrase, “Run around like a chicken with it’s head cut off,” but haven’t witnessed it, a headless chicken can haul ass!