culling

[paramount]

LaughingDog is right. Some of the suggestions made on this issue are just not the way to do it.

He is correct that merely severing the head from the body is the fastest, most humane way to destroy a pigeon, dove or other small bird. The best way is to take the head between the index finger and middle finger, make a closed fist and simply pull. Do not doddle around with the idea that doing it slowly is somehow more humane. Do it swiftly and do it thoroughly. On the surface, this method may appear to be quite violent, grotesque and bloody, but it really is the best way. When done correctly, the bird "really doesn't know what hit him" because death is instant. While I am sure it is not painless, done correctly, it is over in a split second and the bird does not suffer.

I will have to totally disagree with SuperLuke. While it's clear that he means well, not every bird can be saved. Saving the un-savable typically results in a form of long drawn out bought of suffering.

You have to use your best judgment regarding not only the afflicted bird, but also the unafflicted who might be infected by that one sick bird.

If you raise birds of any kind, sooner or later, you will have to deal with this situation.

 

[missy55]

I agree with you! I've come across a similar situation a few times in the 12 years I have raised pigeons.I have tried to always make it quick and as painless as possible,I am glad to hear that I'm not a murderer,even though I feel so bad about it I know that letting the bird suffer is far worse. Thanks for your comments on this matter

 

[paramount]

I agree with you! I've come across a similar situation a few times in the 12 years I have raised pigeons.I have tried to always make it quick and as painless as possible,I am glad to hear that I'm not a murderer,even though I feel so bad about it I know that letting the bird suffer is far worse. Thanks for your comments on this matter

No, you're not a murderer. You're doing it the right way.

 

[Pigeon Power]

I do agree decapitation would be the best most humane way....I just don't think I could do it the right way and in turn make it suffer more..I don't have those types of skills nor do I think I ever would. The one time I ended up having to put something down I did use something very very heavy and went for the head because I did not trust my ame, I was terrified that I would be too focused on were to hit and not hit hard enough or miss my mark. I couldn't pull somethings head off or break its neck. Thus I ended up use a very very heavy hammer and the baby bunny was dead on the first blow. It was suffering greatly and it was the right thing to do but it still haunts me to this day, I just don't have much of any of that in me. My husband hunts and is very experienced with this type of thing and is always very humane, so I am very very lucky. He general takes care of these types of things for me, because I just don't trust myself.

 

[aarontheman]

yeah hopfully i wont have to do that for a long time i buried him and all that around here vets and all that you have to pay for and im only 14 i just dont have that money or any for that matter i have heard of some pigeon racers that kill pigeons if its late or doesnt breed well thats just bad out i couldnt do it (im hoping to race in 2015 )

 

[paramount]

Aaron,

You'll find that most people who are very serious breeders destroy their culls. It is not limited to Racing Homers.


You are still young enough to decide what you want to do and how you want to do things.

From a strictly personal perspective, I won't send a bird the vet. Not only are most vets just not that knowledgeable about pigeons and their ailments, but if a bird is really so ill that a vet is necessary, I will typically cull it out of the genepool.

 

[fowlsessed]

Kill culling is hard for me, but I feel it is completely necessary for the present and long term health and improvement of the fowl I am a steward of. If I was not to cull, I would have a hospital before long. Everyone that breeds would. We must keep the best, and get rid of the rest to continue moving up the latter as breeders. There are many ways to cull in your flock, if they are good birds but just, say, you want smaller birds and they are big, you can sell or give away. If their quality is seriously compromised where people will not care for them even as food or pets, then killing is the best option. Although if you have lots of birds it's too much trouble, and often impossible, to find enough folks who will take them, it seems like. I've let nature do its work on several occasions, but feel guilty as I'm the caretaker and should put fowl out of their misery as soon as possible if they are not going to restore. You could look into gassing as a way to kill cull, not with car fumes or anything like that, but with suitable gasses.

 

[jak2002003]

Aaron,

You'll find that most people who are very serious breeders destroy their culls. It is not limited to Racing Homers.


You are still young enough to decide what you want to do and how you want to do things.

From a strictly personal perspective, I won't send a bird the vet. Not only are most vets just not that knowledgeable about pigeons and their ailments, but if a bird is really so ill that a vet is necessary,

I will typically cull it out of the genepool...... Why do you do that? That would seem pointless for most diseases that are not genetic disorders.

 

[paramount]

In my experience (35+ years at this), birds that don't recover from a disease like salmonella without a lot of extra effort, usually possess some sort of inherent genetic weakness.

Another issue is that even though some of those birds recover from the physical symptoms of a disease, they still wind up being carriers (I don't mean genetically, I mean biologically). This is especially true of salmonella, which seems to strike some lofts almost every generation after the initial infection appears to be "whipped". I have seen some cases of salmonella that afflicted lofts that contained several bloodlines of the same breed and have noticed that certain bloodlines (or portions in a bloodline) were far more susceptible to infection than the other. One friend of mine had one family of rollers that were infected with salmonella by a stray Racing Homer and over several generations time, an entire portion of the family was systematically wiped out by re-infection over the course of several generations. When all was said and done, all of those birds turned out to be the descendants of one single hen. Once that hen's genetic impact was eliminated, he never had another problem. Needless to say, while the disease was not genetic, some sort of underlying weakness was genetic. I would rather not perpetuate that sort of thing.

For many people who keep pigeons (or other types of animals), they have no interest in them beyond the fact that they enjoy having them for their beauty. That is fine in my book. We all started that way.

For some of us, our interest goes a little further than that. In my situation, I have had my current family of Birmingham Rollers since the mid 1980's. My original start came from the late Chandler Grover, who had his start in rollers in 1929. (He was also a Master Breeder of African Owls). When I first met him, he had already been something of a living legend for decades and I was incredibly blessed to receive birds and guidance from him directly. My general feeling is that I owe the man a great debt of gratitude, which I can only do by maintaining his birds to the very best of my ability. My hope is that 50 or 100 years from now, they will still be around. This can only be accomplished by settling for the very best examples of this breed and by not tolerating faults or weaknesses. As a consequence, one of my feelings is that if a bird must be coddled because it is susceptable to some disease or other weakness, I cannot justify keeping it in the breeding program.

 

[jak2002003]

Ah.. I see...

I agree with you.. that f the bird is not recovering.. or taking a long time, etc, its best to cull. But I give them all a chance at the start.. I have had a similar experience to you, with regards of particular blood lines being less resistant to disease:

My loft suffered a bad case of Salmonella about a year ago. It came in from a healthy pair of fantails.. which turned out to be carriers for this disease.

The problems started when my original birds started loosing squabs and then eggs would not hatch. Then older birds started to die, and the young of the fantails all died too.

In the end what remained of my original birds (10 from 22) all recovered fine.. but it took a few more clutches of unhatched eggs, and a few more young squabs dyeing before the disease was under control.

The fantails, however, kept lapsing back into the disease.. and so I decided to cull them.

Now.. over a year on.. all my remaining birds are very healthy and very prolific breeders. I have also added not birds to the loft a few times and they have not become infected.

I think (hope) that the birds that survived and recovered are going to be more resistant to that disease in the future.. and perhaps pass on their strength in their genetics to they offspring.