Nice! Nice! Nice! Not! Not! Not!

[Neil]

We have some bushes by the side of the house. They've needed chopping back for a number of months, but I spotted a bird nesting in there so thought I'd better wait till its chicks had grown and flown etc...

Went to do it today, moved a chair out of the way and knocked a bucket half filled with water over in the process! Imagine my delight as the water flowed over my bare feet, to leave the rotten carcase of a young bird lying on my foot.

It had been in the water I'm guessing for quite a few days so it its flesh was hanging loosly from its bones. There were lots of nice small wriggling little friends which had been busy having a picnic, also over the floor and my foot...

Nice! Nice! Nice!

All the trouble I took to not disturb it, only for it to drop and drown in a bucket half filled with water :(

Hopefully it had a couple of brothers or sisters who did make it!

[MinionZombie]

Ewww! Neil!

That post has literally loosened my bowels ... so with the pressure of mother nature banging on my colon, it's always the way isn't it? Leave something alone and mother nature will invariably gush a semi-liquified baby bird all over your foot ... ewww dude.

[Debbie]

That really sucks. Sorry. At least you tried to do the right thing by helping keep the nest while the babies grew up. I bet there were others that flew away.

I watched a show the other day on animal planet about Mere cats which are actually pretty cool animals the way they hang with each other and all , well the one had babies and she left it behind on accident in a move to another place , the camera man saw this and didn't pick it up just left it laying there in the hot sun. How could he sleep, I was so upset watching this. Later on they showed the mother coming back for her baby and she couldn't find it , but the camera man explained that it was dead and then showed it laying there . That was mean. I know you are not supposed to step in but come on I'd be saving everything !

[coma]

Often when you touch a baby animal it gets a human scent on it and the mother ignores it, leaving it to die anyway. This particulalr happens with birds.

[MapMan]

Nasty. I was mulching a flower bed Saturday and stepped into a yellow jackets nest and got stung 4 times. At least I didn't have maggots involved.

[Graebel]

The key to not being grossed out is repetition.

I feed captive barn owls kept in outdoor pens. When they don't eat the rats, every bug in the county comes to call. I feel like I'm on CSI identifying bugs.
To be truthful my boss will pick them up bare-handed. I'm a wimp and use gloves.

For future reference, if you find a baby bird that you can't return to its nest. You can build a small nest with a round Tupperware and paper towels. They can eat well-moistened cat or dog food. When they open you just shove it in.

If you want to re-release them you shoudl feed with chopsticks or other rounded-end utensil. As they grow you can move them to a larger cage for flight and start providing the wet food and water on the floor of the cage to encourage flight. Eventually you leave the door open and let them fly away. We just raised 2 starlings and a crow this way.

Rabbits however will just die. :(

[HLS]

The key to not being grossed out is repetition.

I feed captive barn owls kept in outdoor pens. When they don't eat the rats, every bug in the county comes to call. I feel like I'm on CSI identifying bugs.
To be truthful my boss will pick them up bare-handed. I'm a wimp and use gloves.

For future reference, if you find a baby bird that you can't return to its nest. You can build a small nest with a round Tupperware and paper towels. They can eat well-moistened cat or dog food. When they open you just shove it in.

If you want to re-release them you shoudl feed with chopsticks or other rounded-end utensil. As they grow you can move them to a larger cage for flight and start providing the wet food and water on the floor of the cage to encourage flight. Eventually you leave the door open and let them fly away. We just raised 2 starlings and a crow this way.

Rabbits however will just die. :(

That reminds me of a not so fond child hood memory.

When I was 4 years old I wanted to **** off the neighbor bully and so I proceeded to pick up, with my hands, a dead rat crawling with maggots :eek: and as I was about to place it in their mailbox the boys mother caught me red handed and screamed bloody hell. :elol: She made my mother clean it up. I was sooooo grounded! That was back in 1973 I think.