We retired some chickens today, and for years we've been using this black bucket as an easy, DIY substitute to the traditional Kill Cone that has worked for thousands of backyard chicken people. My Mom made the hole so she could grow an upside down tomato plant back when that was all the rage in modern gardening techniques. She went back to putting her tomatoes in the ground and offered us the bucket one day.

That bucket collected dust in the barn for a year or two until we started processing our own poultry. We mounted a shelf bracket so it could hang at an easy height and it worked well at keeping the bird still while its head poked out through the hole.

Trial and error showed us the hole was too big. The more aggressive chickens could sometimes get one of their claws through the hole, complicating the procedure.

Today I finally modified an old bucket with a smaller hole which seems to be a huge improvement. A 2 inch hole saw makes the opening just big enough for a chicken's head without the extra room version 1.0 offered.