Pigeon pulling
Ive been reading this book about EATM (where I'll be heading in the Fall) titled "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the World's Premier School for Exotic Animal Training"
Its been getting me both nervous and excited.
One of the things I am dreading doing though is Pigeon Pulling. If you can't deduct what that means by the title, simply put its when we pulled the heads of pigeons to use as food for the birds of pray and other carnivores.
As inhumane as that may sound, its actually the most humane way to go about killing the birds. It breaks their spinal cords immediately killing them. However, as much described in the book, these birds will still twitch around. I guess you need to hold it tight against the garbage can to keep it from getting away from you.
This is something everyone in the program has to do, and is a requirement of many professionals in the exotic animal world.
It will be my first time killing an animal with my own hands and I'm not sure how I will handle it. But I will worry about that when the time comes.
In the mean time I am going to focus on my next two years of working with exotic animals (Ive got my heart set on orangutans, big cats, sea lion and the miniature horse actually) .
I'm also hoping that I wont be too turned off by some of the people in the program, as the book also seems to describe. I just need to think of it as BR all over again, except with emus, servals, a capuchin monkeys.
Its been getting me both nervous and excited.
One of the things I am dreading doing though is Pigeon Pulling. If you can't deduct what that means by the title, simply put its when we pulled the heads of pigeons to use as food for the birds of pray and other carnivores.
As inhumane as that may sound, its actually the most humane way to go about killing the birds. It breaks their spinal cords immediately killing them. However, as much described in the book, these birds will still twitch around. I guess you need to hold it tight against the garbage can to keep it from getting away from you.
This is something everyone in the program has to do, and is a requirement of many professionals in the exotic animal world.
It will be my first time killing an animal with my own hands and I'm not sure how I will handle it. But I will worry about that when the time comes.
In the mean time I am going to focus on my next two years of working with exotic animals (Ive got my heart set on orangutans, big cats, sea lion and the miniature horse actually) .
I'm also hoping that I wont be too turned off by some of the people in the program, as the book also seems to describe. I just need to think of it as BR all over again, except with emus, servals, a capuchin monkeys.