Kitchen Garden Forum

Anyone know about pigeons, the cat brought one in today, i dont know how he got it through the cat flap! anyway, there was a lot of blood and feathers but on closer inspection nothing looks broken there is a gash on its back and smaller one on one wing. I put it in a rabbit cage with some weetabix, thats all i could think to give it. What shall I do with it if it survives the night! I would take it too the vet but last week they caught a mouse and it cost £15 to get that put to sleep. This is the start of things to come the kittens are a year old and i have just started letting them out. I wish I had the heart to put these poor creatures under a bush somewhere and forget about them

mandy

Hello MandyLew
Is your vet now driving a brand new Mercedes by any chance?

John (with thanks to Pam Ayres)

Hi Mandylew

We had a pigeon fall down our chimney and having kept it overnight in the chicken run I called the RSPCA who collected it. They said they'd have it cleaned up and on the wing in no time and they were often called out for pigeon rescue.

You could try putting bells on your cats. Mine used to have two bells each when they were young and predatory.

I will try the RSPCA and also local homing pigeon association, sure if i look there must be one. I got it out today, it only has one tail feather left, and quite a few 'puncture' wounds. However it is eating the weetabix, and pooing, its quite cute really with its big orange eyes

mandylew wrote:However it is eating the weetabix, and pooing, its quite cute really with its big orange eyes

Sounds like it's ready to to be weaned onto your cabbages & sprouts. Our local pigeons are making mincemeat of mine!

Colin

I keep coming back to this thread and re-reading it in amazement.

At work we have a mouse infestation in our ten storey office block and are trying desperately to poison them corporately and trap them personally.

Mouse shit in ones teabags adds a certain je-ne-sais-quois to the flavour. With all the sub-floor wiring the added fire risk of suicidal rodents chewing the mains (older cable covering is very attractive to them)is slightly worrying.

Taking a mouse to the vet seems incredible, as does being charged £15 to kill it.

No criticism of personal worries about suffering intended, as that is a humane and proper attitude, but the two perspectives are, well, poles apart.

On reflection, it is the vets cheek that gets my goat.

How many people come to the vet with wounded mice, fifty a day, or one in a blue moon?

Euthanising a mouse must take all of nothing to achieve, pop it in a container and flood the container with anasthetic gas.

As for the pigeon, I went past a field at the weekend where someone was shooting them..........

I know where you're coming from Peter, I worked in an office in a warehouse and we had mice everywhere. I was the only one who'd empty the traps as even the rufty tufty drivers wouldn't do it and the cleaner stood on my desk and screamed all the time

Having said that, I absolutely hated killing them and would catch them and let them go outside when I could (I know, they came straight back in),

My worst experience was when my golfball typewriter stopped working very suddenly and when I lifted the lid, there was mouse bits everywhere as one had gone underneath and been caught in the belt. It was GROSS! I got a new typewriter though...

Do you know the worst thing? On my way into work I rescue snails from the footpath and put them into the hedge where they're safe and me a gardener.

I remove mice safely from the house if I get the chance, but if the cats get mice, pigeons, rats and rabbits they get nothing but praise. I just wish they were fast enough to catch squirrels and strong enough to tackle the pheasants.
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Granny

Mandylew - you've probably done all you can unless you have any wild bird seed or dry oats you can give it. The bird is probably very shocked and needs to be left alone overnight as regular human contact will probably shock it more. By morning it will either be dead, or possibly recovered enough to be released.
Peter - don't know why you should be amazed at the acts of kindness towards little creatures on this site - most of us are pretty soft! I regularly pick up worms from the pavement and put them in a safe place to to prevent them from being trodden on or horribly dried up in the sunshine.
I also couldn't bear to kill some mice who were over-wintering in our garage where we store peanuts for the birds, but really paid the price. They ended up nesting in my car ventilation system when it was parked in there overnight and eventually blocked the whole system. The garage had to dismantle my dashboard to clear it out and I collected a hefty bill. So now the little creatures are chased off, but still not killed.

I'm sorry. The only good vermin is dead.

Primrose wrote:....Peter - don't know why you should be amazed at the acts of kindness towards little creatures on this site - most of us are pretty soft! .....

Primrose, don't misunderstand me, reread my original. The vet is what amazed me.
I would have dealt with the mouse myself, humanely with my air-rifle.

I am never amazed at people being soft as you put it, people have a nearly limitless capacity to be emotionaly sympathetic.

Amused maybe, in a rather unpleasant down-my-nose sort of way, ( admit my faults, - sometimes) especially by cases such as your car, where rodent-unaware storage combined with a rather cuddly-bunny viewpoint ends up costing someone a packet.

Bet you would not be so happy if mousy damaged the electonics on your car causing your engine to surge or brakes to fail precipitating an accident.

I am amazed when I see people swerve their car into oncoming traffic, or carry out an emergency stop to avoid a squirrel or rabbit, risking their own and other human lives for a pest.

pigeon was picked up by the rspca, it had no tail feathers left so wouldnt be able to fly for a while but was otherwise quite chirpy. I actually thought the mouse had potential, we had kept it a couple of days, I actually went out and bought some fluffy bed and food for it, Emma (who turned out to be Emmet!) was eating out of our hands, but it passed some blood in its urine and didnt have full function of one of its back legs, yeah i'm a softie, and i thought £15 was a bit steep, but at least i knew the vet would do it humanely if i paid.

And on the subject of snail we always pick them up on the way to school and put them off the path incase they get trodden, we get quite a lot of those giant black slugs along the way too and the same for them, my son picks them up in a leaf.

But anyway the cats have new collars with very loud bells, and have not caught anything else to date (total tally 2 mice one dead one alive, one pigeon to date). they are only young rascals.

mandy

Hmmmnn - I'm lining up with Peter on this one.

Our cats are semi-feral and actively encouraged to hunt and kill. Nevertheless, we do poison rats and mice, trap squirrels and shoot them, shoot rabbits and suffer many others (such as badgers) because they're protected.

Even so, last winter the badger population decimated our 2 year old fruit orchard and also dug up 8 beds of strawberries. I know it was them because I filmed the b*****s. This year mice took out all the early sowings, squirrels dug up the artichokes, ate the sweetcorn and collected all the walnuts.

I could go on.......

Don't know about the rest of you but I'm still trying to visualise Peter shooting a mouse at point blank range with an air rifle.
Chilling

GIULIA wrote:Don't know about the rest of you but I'm still trying to visualise Peter shooting a mouse at point blank range with an air rifle.
Chilling

The only instant method available to me, unless I stamp on it.

Of course the other option is to not have a cat.