Aged about 11
I lived with my folks on their smallholding. Wood pigeons would eat all our veg crops any time they got the chance, and as well as netting over the top of them, Dad bought an air rifle to keep them down and taught me to shoot with it. I got fairly good.

Good enough to hit a wood pigeon in flight, anyway. The first time, the bird was still alive. We had no gun dog to bring it back to us, so we yomped across the field to where it lay, flapping abjectly. My dad looked at it and solemnly pronounced that, since I'd wounded it, I should learn to put it out of it's misery. The kindest and quickest way, he informed me, was to gently pull it's neck until I felt a 'pop', which would be its neck breaking.

So I gently grab Woody the Woodpigeon in my left hand. I gently grab its bobbing head in my right. I gently pull, or so I thought. Probably over egged it a bit, since the poor bloody bird's head came off in my hand.

We had pigeon pie that night, and it tasted 'orrible. And not just because I couldn't get the image of those little pigeon eyes rolling back in its head just before severance.

I later killed ducks, geese and chickens, I still eat meat, and would still kill for food or to protect food from pests. But I'd like to think I have a bit more respect for living things now, compared to your average Joe whose exposure to real life stops at the supermarket chiller cabinet.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 27 Aug 2010, 15:48, 3 replies)

A more sure fire way to kill, but not have any decapitated critters...
...is to just reload whilst running over and put one through it's head a point blank range as pigeons aren't one for writhing around.


or stamp on the crop-munching little fecker
( currantbun is nubtnarruc backwards, Fri 27 Aug 2010, 16:07, closed)

Shooting a Woody in mid-flight with an air rifle?
No chance.
Massive lies.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Tue 31 Aug 2010, 14:46, closed)

!
Isn't this a scene from Peep Show?
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 11:30, closed)