Injured bird in Garden

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Purple

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There's an injured bird in the garden which was attacked by a cat earlier and the kids are getting very upset about it.
What's the best thing to do?
 
Purple said:
There's an injured bird in the garden which was attacked by a cat earlier and the kids are getting very upset about it.
What's the best thing to do?
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Was told by a bird watch neighbour a couple of years ago, when we rescued a bird from our cat that birds pretend to be injured or dead so they will be left alone. They usually hide behind something and when things have calmed down they fly off as this one did. Are you sure its injured?
 
This really is part of nature and let nature take its course.

If you could get the kids to understand this, great.

If not, go out and put the bird out of its misery.

Brendan
 
Brendan said:
go out and put the bird out of its misery.
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I'd have to second this, quite often birds that I tried to rescue in the past became very distressed before eventually dying. I don't do it anymore. A stick or a rock is unfortunately probably the most humane thing to do.
 
Local vets will look after the birds free of charge. I took one or two to the vets mainly because my daughter was getting more upset by the minute. Both birds died so what Brendan/baldyman say is probably right.
 
I concur with Brendan, I have two luvly fur balls who are sometimes too good at hunting and like to bring me small birds (and other things) as small pressies.

I used to try and nurse them back, but after ohh 5 failed attempts, and the fact the poor things seemed to be as scared (or even more so) of me, I had to give up, now if the bird can't flap its wings and get away under its own power, I have to do the humane thing.
 
I also agree the best thing to do is put them out of their misery.

Not nice but better than the alternative.
 
Thanks for the replies. I suggested finishing it off but the kids would have reacted badly to me beating it to death with a shovel. In the end the bird did the decent thing and died.

It wasn't our cat that attacked it; I wouldn't have one of those disgusting cold eyed animals in the house. It belongs to the people in the house behind us (if a cat really ever belongs to anyone) so I threw the corpse of the bird, a fledgling blackbird, into their garden.
 
I think I would have had to tried to rescue it if it were me. I'd bring it to the vets rather than club it to death.
 
Put a bell on your cat, its not nature taking it course, cats arent native, thats like saying my dog gets out and kills a few rabbits and squirrels in the park every nite and saying ot ok its nature !!!!!
 
milan said:
Put a bell on your cat, its not nature taking it course, cats arent native, thats like saying my dog gets out and kills a few rabbits and squirrels in the park every nite and saying ot ok its nature !!!!!
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No can do....from the OP:
"It wasn't our cat that attacked it; I wouldn't have one of those disgusting cold eyed animals in the house"
 
Talk to a vet, or the animal protection society.

We found an "injured" bird in the garden a few years ago and tried to nurse it back to health. Turned out there was nothing wrong with it - it just couldn't take off from the ground (can't remember the kind of bird). The advice was to take it to an open area and throw it straight up in the air. This we did. It started to plummet back to earth as the kids looked on nervously, then at the last minute flapped the wings and took off. It circled us a few times and flew away.

Of course, this might not be the solution for your bird. But you never know.
 
Don't have to have the fascinatingly ruthless, stubbornly feral, fanged gymnasts in the house though - just keep 'em in the garden and let the aloof, cool and unflappable killing machines just get on their clinical clean up campaign!
 
our vet recommended not puttting a collar/bell on our cat because they love to climb trees etc and the collars can get caught in branches and choke them etc
 
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