How to kill a rabbit

out last night I saw a rabbit get hit by a car, either its back or back legs were broken as it tried to drag it’s way off the road.

Clearly I couldn’t leave it and I didn’t think the vet was a serious option, but as I picked it up I was acutely aware i didn’t actually know what to do. So i swung and clubbed it proper hard on to a fence post which thankfully did the trick.

How do you do it properly?

[anyone suggesting hitting the back of its legs with a stick and then pushing it over will be banned]

Conversation afterwards with a riding mate was along the lines of ‘what if it was badger’ (which you often see as road kill too). HTF do you off something as evil as that if you had to?

Serious Health & Safety point. Do not attempt to humanely destroy an injured badger unless you have a bazooka or are a level 5 ninja. It is not worth the risk.

Do you want to come round to mine and dispatch the neighbours cat which craps all over my garden?

‘what if it was badger’ (which you often see as road kill too). HTF do you off something as evil as that if you had to?

nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure

drive over it

drive over it

On a pushbike?

Besides which, the poor little sod wouldn’t keep still.

To the OP – Quickly, decisively and as effectively as possible. Put the little blighter out of it’s misery as quickly as you can. The fencepost idea is absolutely fine. Then lob it somewhere visible for the scavengers to have a decent feed on it.

Serious Health & Safety point. Do not attempt to humanely destroy an injured badger unless you have a bazooka or are a level 5 ninja. It is not worth the risk.

Seconded..

I ran one over in a Zafira down a quiet lane a few years ago. Right under the wheels and everything. Saw it still moving in the mirror. Got out to go look. To say it was not pleased to see me is an understatement. It was well pissed off!

driving a Zafira, perhaps he thought you’d be some sort of yummy mummy? That wasn’t pissed off, just badger disappointment.

rabbits, you grab back legs in one hand head in other and pull apart, job done.

as for badgers I have no idea but I hit one in my mini years ago, bowled it over and it lay in the road not moving. I got out of the car to see if it needed killing (no idea how I was going to do it) and it jumped up, snarled at me and ran off. I was at this point sat on the now somewhat dented bonnet of my car!!

drive over it

On a pushbike?

Besides which, the poor little sod wouldn’t keep still.

how many goes did you have ? 🙂

Anything needing this doing (usually bunnies) – hard hit to back of the head/neck – either on fence post etc as you did, or with suitably large stick or rock.
We used to have lots of rabbits at an old employers, and myxomatosis (sp?) was rife – we used to club em regularly. One poor critter was being put out its misery by a colleague – I got the group of kids we were climbing with to look at me and started to hold their view to avoid them seeing distressing scenes behind them. Cue little johnny at the back of the group saying (at just the perfect moment as the colleague swung the club) ‘Oh, whats he doing to the wabbit?’.
.
=10 primary age children in tears…

badgers are the 2nd hardest thing on this planet next to chuck norris!

that was a good giggle. maybe just put it back in the rd and wait for the next car to finish it properly
once saw a pick of a squirel wrapped round someones rotor…….

Hold up by its back legs, karate chop to the spine

Had the same problem with a polar bear a few weeks back………Blackburn pump on the back of its head didnt have desired result

You can flick bunnies by the head so the weigh of their body breaks their own neck. Unless you know what you are doing you’ll probably just cause it more opain and distress, so stoving the head in one way of another is probably better.

I hate having to do this kind of thing. I know its for the best but I always feel bad.

oops sorry i miss read it! thought you were in a car. id have done what you did probably. if it was a bird i would give it a swift stamp on the noggin – horrible but effective.

Expat – that was in MBUK i think? i saw it too, it looked like it was still alive! yuk

Hold it tightly by the neck, heel of hand under chin & push head back till you hear sickening cracking sound. AFAIK.

Had to finish off one of our guinea pigs a while back. We have at any time 20-50 guinea pigs so %age wise this was not a big deal. That said, in the absence of Bear Grylls I was not 100% sure on the easiest means to kill it. I decided to opt for putting it in a rubbish bag first to avoid clearing up a mess afterwards, then I bashed it on the head with a rubber mallet. Job done.

The question is then, what is the lightest mallet to carry in your CamelBak ?

There is a second part to this: the local vets charge about £8 to “cremate” pets. My wife and children are happy for me to take dead pets (with the number we have there are deaths more regularly than most). Do you think I should pocket the cash and drive past vets to council tip or give vets money and then have them make the trip to the tip for me.

As above really.

When I’ve been hunting and have not managed to dispatch them cleanly with a head shot; pick them up by the back legs, hold it’s neck in the other hand, pull apart using a fair amount of force and twist the neck at the same time. Quickly snaps the neck and kills them quickly.

Then run your finger down the stomach to ’empty’ it. Paunch it and you’re good to go!

why do you have that many guinea pigs count?

Sorry but the last thing i want to do is go near a dying rabbit, never mind a bloody ball of nastiness called a badger.

I would in all honesty leave the bloody thing. Not nice i know but if you think i am putting my hands anywhere near its head/mouth so it can bite me you have another thing coming. I had rabbits as a lad and the bloddy things can bite yer finger off!!

At must i would take a run up and give it a goal kick for England but i would need to be feeling very brave.

This si coming from the guy who had to get a mate in to empty a mouse trap as i wasnt going anywhere near it!!

MrCrushrider – Member
why do you have that many guinea pigs count?

Chillisauceboss?

David_r and co – that was my plan as I went over to it, only to have the thought as I picked it up – how hard do you pull?

using a fair amount of force

I had a sudden vision of me standing by the side of the road with a headless bunny in one hand and a head in the other, covered in fresh arterial blood, as the next car drove by.

Hence opted for the fence post to the back of the head – or vice versa as it turned out. As flashy said, by the time I had hold of the little bugger, i wanted it done just as fast as he did, and that seemed to do the job.

I’ve wondered in the past what I’d do if….. and although it wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t actually that hard given the alternative.

Snap it’s neck in one of the many suggested methods, this probably only paralises it but unless you check it’s heart beat…….short lived though, i usually hold it by the rear legs and chop down on the back of its neck, if they’re too wriggly then i crack they’re neck by force.

All depends on how i feel at the time.

A snarling injured Badger would be hard work to dispatch, but i’d prolly use a swift blow to the back of the head, not easy when it’s squirming around, never leave an animal to suffer unless it’s too dangerous to deal with it(roads).

BTW, a badger will turn in it’s den and block then entrance with it’s rear, a dog would need claw at it to get to the cubs.
Proper ‘ard b’stids!

It doesn’t take much to kill a wabbit, just do what david_r said. Don’t freak if they keep moving about, if you have broken their neck it is lights out time. Forget the large, brown mournful eyes looking at you accusingly, the last twitch of its ears, the final breath etc etc. If it badly injured it is either going to go off to die in lots of pain or be finished off by the local fox or whatever. You are doing it a favour.

A badger though….probably a baseball bat but you can do it…. I’m not going anywhere near a half dead, pissed off badger!

I had the eyes thing sorted – 200 lumens of Dinotte looking straight at it, I’m sure he couldn’t see me.

Kind of like a hi-tech, On-one sponsored, executioners hood.

aye, rabbits are easy to dispatch, they’re also easy to gut.

Injured badger? I’d rather approach an injured Lion.

you bastards!

we’re coming back for you. 👿

as for badgers, surely the best way is simply to pwn them with bombers?

Out on a night ride a few years ago, bombing down a piece of singletrack, guy in front runs his front wheel into a badger coming the other way, stops my mate dead in his tracks. Badger shakes it’s head, snarls, wanders off into the undergrowth. front wheel was fecked.

Double hard barstids and no mistake.

this is a good video showing you howto. (59secs in)
http://www.flicklife.com/b64dbb5db76bf8fca6a8/How_to_break_a_rabbits_neck.html

The way Ive always used should I need too, is a bit like you would for a game bird: one hand round head, the other next to it at tother end of neck and a quick roll and twist of your fists together stretching the neck vertabrae.

My brother caught a fox in a trap near his chickens last year and phoned me to ask how to dispatch it.

I told him to hit it in the head with a shovel. He later confirmed that it worked. Would also work for rabbits I suspect.

badgers are the 2nd hardest thing on this planet next to chuck norris!
yer standard badger mebbe, honey badgers significantly out-chuck chuck.

Do honey badgers emasculate their prey?
Honey badgers are reputed to go for the scrotum when attacking large animals. The first published record of this behaviour was a circumstantial account by Stevenson- Hamilton (1947) where a badger reportedly castrated an adult Buffalo. Other animals alleged to have been emasculated by honey badgers include wildebeest, waterbuck, kudu, zebra and man. This has also been reported by other African tribes, but no direct evidence exists to support this behaviour.
http://www.honeybadger.com/FactFile/F.A.Q.htm

🙂

It’s Drop Bears you really want to worry about….

http://www.geocities.com/muirnin/db.htm

Am I alone in thinking it odd that you’d have a trap to catch foxes but haven’t planned ahead with what to do once you’d caught one?

Genuinely not sure how I’d do it. I’ve had to run over cats and frogs before to put them out of their misery but it seems to get more difficult each time. I stopped fishing with my dad as a kid because I didn’t like clubbing them to death.

[Chuckles manically at Count putting one of his fifty guineapigs in a sack and bashing it with a mallet before grinding it for kebabs.]