I Had to Kill a Pigeon.
Posted 09-13-2014 at 08:26 AM by STM
That's the first time I've ever intently killed anything bigger than an insect before and I felt absolutely shit for it.
Basically it flew into my brother's closed bedroom window, smacked its head so the flesh/ skull was showing and was standing there dazed. I picked it up wearing gardening gloves and put it down out of the cat's reach then inspected it. It's back and chest were bloody so I think it was diseased or had been got at, there was also blood coming out of its mouth so I psyched myself up, put my hand around its neck and...bent.
Unfortunately my humanity took hold last second and rather than snap it quickly I literally bent it to the side. I held it like that as it flapped around and gagged hoping to choke it out but I figure its windpipe must be too small to choke because it kept breathing. After about what must have been 20-30 seconds I did finally manage to snap its neck and then I gave it a good second twist just for good measure.
Poor thing, I felt awful as it kept staring up at me...needless to say I was rather upset and once it was disposed of I had a bit of a sob.
The one thing I'm taking from this is to research how to quickly and humanely snap a bird's neck because we get them hitting our windows every few months, usually they fly off eventually though. :'(