Reducing amount of blunt hits enough to kill prey

[Kels]

I beat a sheep to death with what would probably qualify in URW as a stone.  I expected the first blow to kill it, but it just sent it into a panic instead.  Then it was frenzy time, took maybe 5 or 6 hits to finish the job.  Any medium or large sized animal has quite a thick skull, and will survive a fair bit of blunt force trauma before dying.  Look at the power of a captive bolt gun, as used in a slaughterhouse, and even they don't always do the job in one hit.

True. However, using blunt force to kill livestock has been used for as long as livestock has existed. Our hardy Finnish survivor is not weak or unskilled by any measure and would be familiar with killing animals quickly. While finishing blows shouldn't be 100% instant kills, I think that the sometimes 30+ strikes required probably isn't intended.

Your experience of the animal waking up and requiring 5-6 hits to finish it is definitely something I would think is normal for the game. It's the sometimes 30+ repeated killing blows on an unconscious animal that seems off to me.