Wendyl Nissen: Death trap

If you come across me in the next day or two, chances are I will ask your advice on how to kill a chicken. I have another sick chicken and she needs to be put out of her misery, or should I say my misery.

I have set myself the challenge of killing her myself, reasoning that if you're going to keep livestock, you should take on the responsibility of dispensing with them when the need arises. Last time I called on my brother to do the deed.

"You aren't living in a reality show. You don't need to set yourself challenges," pointed out my husband after receiving a text which said: "R u in the mood 4 chkn killn?"

"I'm just not sure how the neighbours would react," was what he said after I came home from lunch with a sure-fire scheme shared with me by a good friend to put Marigold in a rubbish bag, seal the opening around the exhaust pipe of the car and leave it running for 10 minutes. My friend - we'll call him Hutch - managed to dispense with a wild baby goat this way once.

"Seems very humane to me," I reasoned. "Nice little sleep. All over, Rover."

"Yes, but how would you know she's actually dead and you weren't burying her alive? Do you know how to take a chicken's pulse?"

"I think I have enough challenges for one week, thank you."

Meanwhile, Marigold seemed to get wind of my plans and is using her last days on earth to wreak as much havoc as she can. Lightning dashes into the kitchen where she hides under the table and deposits as many droppings as she can are standard practice. And she insists on crowding in with Yoko while she is laying an egg in the nest by the front door to throw me off the scent.

My brother sent me to YouTube, where there are many instructional videos on how to kill a chicken, mostly involving blood and knives. But he swears by holding them upside down by the feet and pulling the neck down swiftly.

I consulted my chiropractor.

"Do we have to talk about this now?" she asked as she clicked my spine.

"Well, you know about spines, do you think that would do it?"

"I think you'd want to twist the neck at the same time or else you might just dislocate it, or you might pull her head off."

"Do we have to talk about this now?" I replied, as she pulled my neck swiftly.

Meanwhile Matilda, my gorgeous Barred Plymouth Rock, who I have had since she hatched, went broody. Which means she never leaves the hen house and sits on her eggs in the hope that they will hatch. They won't. We don't have a rooster to fertilise them.

This was very disappointing, as I had just trained her to perch on my arm, a trick which never fails to impress small children.

I realised that with Marigold gone we would need some more hens and Matilda would be a conveniently timed incubator.

"Fertilised eggs!" I cried in delight after buying a dozen on Trade Me.

"How do you kill your hens?" I asked the woman who handed them over.

"With an axe," she said with that "what next?" tone country people use for city folk like me. "That's the quickest way, or you could sell her on Trade Me."

"But she's not laying and she's 2 years old; who would want her?"

"Indians," came the reply. "They eat them. I sell my roosters to them and you don't have to worry about killing them."

I smiled weakly, wondering if this was a racist comment or just a cultural fact.

"Oh, thank you," I said, grabbing the eggs and backing slowly towards the car.

I arrived home to find Marigold perched on the fence, about to jump on to my neighbour's immaculate garden and dig it up.

"You are a dead chicken," I growled before catching her, finding a sharp knife and holding her upside down by her feet.

Marigold can no longer leap or fly, but she is still alive and kicking. I trimmed her wings, reasoning that it's probably best to kill a chicken at the weekend. Or maybe next week.