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The operation of "sticking" the brain to kill spares the bird the
torture of slowly bleeding to death. A thrust of the knife
( See Fig 12 a,b&c) to the brain instantly renders the bird unconscious and
insensible to pain. The method is humane, and it is also of advantage to the picker, for when properly done the muscles are paralysed and the feathers pull easily.
There are three lobes of the brain in a bird's skull,
(See Fig 9). In one, the
smallest and farthest back of these, centre the nerves which control
the feather muscles. This lobe lies at the very base of the skull,
just above the u-shaped depression, which admits the spinal column. A
knife in reaching this portion of the brain passes through the groove
in the roof of the mouth and pierces the soft bone at it's extremity.
In this position the instrument lies midway between the eyes and
parallel to the upper neck. A common mistake made by the inexperienced
in their first attempts to stick to kill is starting the knife too far
forward, for then it hits the middle instead of the rear lobe of the
brain.
Another common method of destroying the same portion of the brain
consists in running the knife in under the right eye directed towards
the middle of the base of the skull. The inside stick, however, is
preferred because it eaves neither visible wound nor blood. When stuck
through the mouth some blood vessels are severed in the brain and an
outlet for their contents is made by the knife hole. This is of some
help in securing better bleeding, especially when the neck veins have
been poorly severed.
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