Humane small animals euthanasia??

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Is there a quick, humane, and hopefully as painfree as possible way of putting down little critters? I've faced this with pet rats now and then and with sick/weak chicks (more ofthen than rats!). I have a deformed chick (from a hatchery -- very weak legs, splayed out to the side). The chick is fine, except that the leg problem is making it hard for it to get around, get food, water, etc., so that I've been feeding/ watering it for the last two days. I'm sure this chick will not do well, if it survives. Is there a humane way for me to put it down?

Thanks for your advice. Andrea

-- Andrea Gauland (andreagee@aol.com), March 22, 2002

Answers

I've never actually done this but I've read that you take a bucket with a tight fitting lid, making sure that it's big enough to fit the entire animal, spray carburetor fluid in the bucket and immediately put the animal in the bucket and put the top on. I don't imagine it would take long for a chick to expire.

Stacy in NY

-- Stacy (KincoraFarm@aol.com), March 22, 2002.


for a chick,, just hold it in your hand,, wrap your thumb around it, pull back till you hear a "pop" or "crack",,cant get any more humane than doing by your hand,, which they know to be safe

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), March 22, 2002.

The above post was indicating ether or starting fluid, I believe. It does work as knockout juice, and is painless. A .22 caliber bullet to the head, done in a way that they cant see it coming works, too. And it only costs a cent or two plus you arent releasing harmful chemicals into the air- which the starting fluid method does. End all the brain function, and you know they arent feeling pain. I dont bellieve any way you do it is pretty, but you have to do what you have to do.

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), March 22, 2002.

Andrea, go to:The Poultry Information Exchange http://nevadatea.com/chicken.html There is a very simple way to correct spraddle legs using pipe cleaners and bandaids. Someone there can give the exact answer. It only takes a few days to correct. Good Luck Yvonne

-- Yvonne (Windridermorgans@earthlink.net), March 22, 2002.

I have used the method described by Stacy in NY, and found it to be effective. You can use an old cooler with a lid, or the bucket.

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), March 22, 2002.


When I kept hamsters I read that putting a dying animal in the freezer was a quick and humane way to end their suffering.

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), March 22, 2002.

The freezer always works for me, too. I also agree that there is a treatment for spraddle leg that works nine times out of ten. Here's a pic showing the basic concept ~ look at the page it's from here ( http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKRaisingChicks.html ) for more info.

-- Wingnut in Spicewood, TX (wingnut@moment.net), March 22, 2002.

I give up! The forum technology adds a space at the end of each line, so when the pic url wraps around and is two lines, it adds a space making it not work! Arrgh! LOL! Oh, well, the pic is of a little yellow chick with what looks like hobbles on ~ it'll be halfway down the page at the url above.

-- Wingnut in Spicewood, TX (wingnut@moment.net), March 22, 2002.

There's a few different issues here. One is the spraddle leg, which MAY be treated successfully. If so, though, I think you'd still want to make sure that you never bred from that bird - those are the sort of congenital tendencies you want to remove from your breeding flock one way or another, even if a treated animal remains in the producing flock.

A second is painlessness - or as close as you can get. Ether (starting spray) is one way. As Kevin said, a .22 is another ("End all the brain function, and you know they arent feeling pain"), and it's instant. Personally, if I were using ether I'd follow up with something else once it had rendered them unconscious, just to ensure that when they appeared dead it wasn't just deeply unconscious - I'd make very sure I was burying a dead animal, rather than an unconscious one.

Some people drown small animals - say excess kittens. I don't agree with that - it's clean and easy for the person, but I've come close enough to it on a couple of occasions to know it isn't clean and easy for the one undergoing the process.

My approach is with Kevin on adult animals: use enough gun to ensure instant death.

For "Humane small animals euthanasia" (getting back on subject) my approach is inducing unconsciousness and severing the spinal cord (not necessarily cutting it - breaking is sufficient). If they're unconscious, and they're not breathing because the impulses to do so aren't coming down the spinal cord, then they aren't going to be waking up again.

Ok, this is a bit graphic, but it's not as bad as it starts out sounding. When faced with the necessity of disposing of a litter of quarter-grown feral cats (raised wild by a very flighty but tame mother), the best tool I could think of was a kitchen cleaver. Steady on - I told you it's not as bad as it sounds. Kittens locked in shed. Leather gloves, thick clothes, pick up kitten by back legs in left hand, spine in towards me. Wait until it settled down, then whack it across the back of the head with the flat of the cleaver - hard enough to at least knock it out instantly if not kill it. Then hit it across the back of the neck with the back edge of the cleaver to break its neck. Job done.

For younger animals (new kittens, feral fox kits) I use a shovel, since I'm digging a hole anyway. Drop the edge of the shovel hard across their necks to break them, then lay the flat of the shovel on their heads and stamp on it. Then use the shovel to tip them in the hole.

Sounds brutal, but it's direct and quick and I know the job's done - no worries about them waking up underground later. Much better than drowning them.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 22, 2002.


For skunks or feral cats, I leave them in the liv e trap, put a tarp ov er it covering all the holes, run a piece of hose from the pickup exhaust under the tarp and leave the truck run for 20 minutes. Must be painless as the skunks don't even spray. Tomas in b.c.

-- Tomas (bakerzee@hotmail.com), March 22, 2002.


What a mental picture: Drawing a bead on a tiny chick with a .22 rifle.

-- Debbie in MO (risingwind@socket.net), March 22, 2002.

Had one chick with a leg out of joint, worse than spraddle leg last year. I tried the freezer idea at someone's suggestion from the forum, and it does work fairly quickly. Just put it in a small box and put it in the freezer for a few hours. Warning, it will CHEEP for a while, until it goes to sleep. I understand some vets use this method, too. Jan

-- Jan in Co (Janice12@aol.com), March 22, 2002.

I ordered my chicks the first of march and one had spraddle legs.I put sand in the box and after a few days the chick was just fine. Bettie

-- Bettie Ferguson (jobett@dixie-net.com), March 23, 2002.

I do wildlife rehab. and for euthanasia use Carbon Dioxide piped into an old metal ice chest (the CO2 tube screws into the water drainage spout). It is fast, painless and very humane. I picked up a 20 lb tank at a welding supply store. I've read that you can also use dry ice, but the animal needs to be put on a platform above it, so it is the CO2 rather than freezing that kills it.

-- Mary S. (1deal@quik.com), March 23, 2002.

I guess the term SPAY - NEUTER is not one used by many to control kittens, puppies, etc....

Easier and so much more macho to just wack, shoot, or drown.

-- BC (katnip364@aol.com), March 23, 2002.



Drawing a bead on a tiny chick with a .22.........

Wouldn't that be overkill?

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@somewhere.com), March 23, 2002.


You took the words right outta my mouth, BC. What is a feral fox kit, anyway? Only domestic animals turn feral. Foxes are wild to start with.

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), March 23, 2002.

Introduced animals that are wild are feral. Some idiots in the eighteenth century that wanted the hunting they were used to in England introduced rabbits and foxes and hares into Australia. They are feral, because they aren't native here, and they are living wild. You may not have feral foxes in your country, but we sure do in Australia. Similarly, in the UK they have feral grey squirrels - introduced from North America.

As to a .22 on a chicken, better overkill than underkill. As people who have paid attention will have noticed, I'm an advocate of desexing animals which shouldn't breed, but unfortunately with cats in particular on farms there are ones you need to breed, but you can't necessarily tell them to not do it this time round. If that happens, then it is the responsibility of the owner to ensure that there aren't excess animals to go wild or feral or whatever. Sell them, give them away, kill them, but no animals which can't be cared for.

As it happens, the batch I got stuck with shouldn't have been there - that mother should have been desexed, but that decision wasn't in my control. I just got stuck with the aftermath. Anyone who thinks that what I described is macho or enjoyable to anyone is SICK, with a warped and twisted imagination. However, I tried to describe dispassionately and helpfully methods which work as humanely as possible. Not pretty, no. Not desirable, no. But if the job needs doing then it's best to make sure it's done properly. No, I DON'T like the feel of little skulls crushing under my heel when I stamp on a shovel blade - but I'd like it a lot less if I was so afraid of bruising my tender feelings that I ran the risk of burying animals alive. That totally unpleasant crunch is my guarantee that the kittens won't wake up smothering for tens of minutes sometime later. I can live with my actions because they accord with my conscience. If others want to risk burying animals alive, or actually carry out drowning them for a few minutes, or freezing them for a few tens of minutes, just because in their opinions that's cleaner and nicer, then I'm afraid we're not going to be able to communicate.

P.S. In my opinion, the ether followed by drowning would be a good answer, as would the exhaust gas.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 23, 2002.


I'm re-posting a response I got from some one who didn't want to be esposed to flame from the forum, and my answer. Sorry, Andrea, but you did head the thread this way, and it is an important topic.

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Don, I thought that was a great post, a rreeaall pity that those who allow unchecked breeding are not the ones who have to deal with the problems they cause. They tend to "dump and run" never seeing the misery the animals go through before they die. The farms can't absorb all the dumped animals and they starve or are shot or chewed up by the resident critters..all very ugly deaths, instead of the "dream' of the animals happily runing through fields and having the perfect home. I will personaly never forget seeing a car stop and a dog dropped on the road and it nearly kill itself trying to chase the car down to get back to "it's" people! Don't ask me how this one ended I was just a child...

As far a feral animals are concered, we have quite the problem with feral cats and dogs here as well. Dog packs are a danger to people as well as livestock. Cats have decimated the populations of ground nesting birds (grouse and quail)...I could go on but I see that you are already one of the "converted"..I don't dare put this out on open forum, just wanted to support your fine post!

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Thanks, XXX. I think I've built enough credibility on the forum to be able to survive what I said (although swallowing their tongues may make some people, and even the thread, choke). Shannon in fact is a sensible person, but she just made (or supported) a comment there that got me going - she and I don't necessarily disagree much, particularly on how we should treat animals, except for the basic point that I'll eat them from time to time and she won't; and she'll try to save some that I wouldn't; and she's got tatts and I don't (yet anyway). However, there should be no cruelty: there we're on common ground.

The other (feral definition) point - they have some reason. Language usage means something to me, and feral can really mean "wild". It can also mean "run wild". However, by convention here it's come to mean "released or escaped and living wild" (sound a bit like "run wild"?). The idea, for instance, is that foxes here were never native - by introducing them people had them under control (read "domesticated" if you can ever say a fox is domesticated), then let them run wild. It's a nitpickers argument, and whether I or the others are the bigger picker of the bigger nits is a moot point. Personally I'm prepared to allow that they've got the biggest nits if that will keep them happy.

It's darn sure not a course of action I like, and I sure wouldn't want to take it on for a living. (Of course, if children were starving, that would be another thing, but my children are about or over 25). Fact is, I was cleaning up a relative's household which no longer had residents, which was why the cleaver was to hand when it was needed - just packing up kitchen goods. Dawned on me it had the necessary combination of weight distribution and physical characteristics. I had to find a home for their mother, but there was no way they would come along, and I couldn't let them run wild. I got her desexed. Although she didn't stay long where she went (my parent's farm), I tried. She went feral, alright, but she didn't have more feral kittens.

Best wishes, Don Armstrong

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 24, 2002.


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