No bloody chicken for me, thank you

Is it kinder to wring a chicken's neck or to chop its head off? (See an earlier post, Not for the chicken-hearted).

Macabre as it sounds, from the chicken's point of view, the question is probably irrelevant.

All the poor thing knows is it's going to die, and all it can do is struggle and squawk in terror, hoping somehow it will be saved.

One can sympathise with the chicken. If my executioner asked me whether I'd like to die by electric chair or hanging or lethal injection, I'm not sure I'd be able to decide. If he told me that one of these choices would be less painful, even more humane, I think I'd laugh in his face, a last death rattle.

Just kill me and be done with it, I'd probably groan.

Yet, we debate and agonise over the kindest way to kill a chicken, one that would cause it least suffering.

Are we hypocritical or kind when we do this?

As far as the butcher is concerned, it simply doesn't matter. Do you want me to wring its neck or what? – he'll say. His only aim is to satisfy his customer.

The chickenwallah I occasionally buy from wrings the necks of his chickens and then leaves them to gasp for a few seconds before dying. I asked him why he didn't just chop off their heads.

Because, he said, there is so much blood.

You can wash off the blood, I pointed out.

He shook his head. The blood stains the body and no amount of water will wash it off, he told me. People don't like to buy such chickens.

If we did,I suppose like Lady Macbeth we'd all be rubbing the blood stain on the chicken and crying: Out, damn'd spot! Out, I say!