Can I shoot???

[DenverBird]

If your favorite tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail....

 

[SJ]

Yes a .22 LR bullet is cheap, but unless you get a brain shot(pea sized BTW), heart shot(ruin some good breasts), or a double lung shot not that quick. Plus like others said you still need to bleed out the bird quickly.
Forget all that about the bird being tough if its shot. As a hunter I will tell you turkey meat shot in wild is as good as what is bought at the store. The pheastants I shoot are as tasty as any chicken I butchered. Speaking of that I feel compelled to speak on the the "quick"ness you assume the firearm brings when dealing out death. I use a 20GA(much larger than a .22) shotgun for pheasants and one mean leghorn rooster. Even using much greater fire power than you are considering death is not always quick. I cant count how many time the dog retreives a wounded but still very much alive bird and have to wring thier necks. Or have chased a wounded bird miles before i found it dead, thats when Ive found them.
Cheap, sure. Quick, not always.
As a hunter and farmer taking the life of any of Gods creatures is a weighty task. A quick death is something YOU OWE to the animal.
If you are going to shoot this bird with a .22, use a bird shot round at close(under 20ft) range and aim for the eye. Federal and Winchester both make a #12 shot load. I use it for pest control. Avoid solid bullets as they will pass through the animal and can travel over a mile. And by all means be safe. Remember to follow all the rules of firearm safety.

Having said that an axe or hedge shears(my preferred tools) are cheap, quick, bleeds the bird out, and reusable(unlike a bullet).

 

[bakerjw]

I prefer slitting over any other method. It contains the bird and cuts down on blood going everywhere.

 

[ourflockof4]

I agree with the others, you are better off to slit it and bleed it out.

To answer your orignal question though, no it will not be tough if you shoot it. I have never had to yet, but came close with a feisty roo that we couldn't catch. We finally got him though as I was walking to the house to get the 12 ga. If you HAVE to shoot one that you can't catch I would recomend a shotgun instead. I good shot with the right load will just about take the head completely off, then bleed them out......

 

[big medicine]

Many, many, moons ago, the first place I lived out on my own, I patched up and closed the front on an old low hog shed to keep birds in. They free ranged all day among a few beef cow/calf in the pasture the shed was in. They did come to the shed to feed, drink, lay, and a safe place to roost, but lead a pretty feral life. You could get most of the older hens to come to you with a bribe of some table scraps or scratch, but the young birds having been raised by broodies in this enviorment were not very human imprinted. When the young cockerels got to be butchering age, after first crawling around, trying to catch freaked out birds in the back of that low, dark shed, I went to plan B. On a bright sunny morning, with the birds milling around near the shed, before they spread across the pasture, I would place a sand bag on the corner post, pick a cockerel that I knew was not in contention to be kept as a breeder for next year, center his head in the crosshairs of the .22, and touch her off. The rest of the cockerels would rush up to see what the deal was with Jim, maybe give him flog or two. I would then pick out contestant number two, and so on, till I had the what I wanted on the ground in short order. A well placed .22 hollow point usually took care of bleeding them out pretty well, but to be sure I would hang them by their feet on the fence after beheading them.

Now this was a solution to maybe a rather unique and short term situation, and having long since been remidied, I have gone back to more traditional methods, which I would also recommend to you as well. Raising stock to feed your family sometimes requires you to cowboy up and deal with some of the less pleasant aspects of it.

 

[valley ranch]

If you want to shoot them, shoot them, they'll jump around when you do. I know you'll make sure the bullet has a backstop.

 

[Fool]

If you want to shoot 'em, I'll second SJ thoughts on using the .22 with #12 shotshells. Shoot 'em in the head at close range (6-10 feet) and the lights go out right now (I've used these before).
The shot spreads very quickly, I think the packaging says 1 inch of spread per foot of distance. I would be close enough that you don't put any of those itty bitty pellets in anything I was going to eat.