Killing your pet out of mercy?

[kage no neko]

So.. one of our finches is dead.

Yesterday morning she was fine. Then by the afternoon she was super lethargic, and I poked her and she didn't try to fly away..... And she stunk. All of my birds smell really sweet, but she smelled horrible.. like death.

A few minutes after I took her out she started having seizures. It was strange to watch, since I had never seen anything have seizures before. It kinda looked like she had a really bad itch she couldn't scratch. But the entire time it was happening, she wouldn't respond. Then she'd suddenly be REALLY awake and hopping around.

We sat there and thought about killing her, just to get it over with. I wondered how we'd do it, he said just hold down her wind pipe until she was gone... But neither of us have ever killed a pet before, and we couldn't do it, as much as it hurt to watch her suffering.
Mind you that our vet is one of the very few vets in the city (okay, the only one I could find) that treats birds, and the clinic was long since closed.. so taking her to the vet wasn't an option.

Have you ever done it, or wanted to do it? How would you go about it?


(this was one of the zebra finch babies, around a year old... now there's only one left out of six, so we're guessing one of the parents has bad genes)  

[Moth Feathers]

I personally would never euthanize a pet/bird in specific unless I knew 100 percent for certain what their ailment or problem was, and was 100 percent certain that there was no treatment I could do whatsoever.
If it's anything except that, I'm too much of an 'amateur pathologist', to so speak, to let it go. A sick animal, as tragic as the situation is, is also a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of today's medical treatments and care.
But that's just me. I like avian medicine, and if any of my birds came down ill (even with something as serious as what you described), I would first try to diagnose and treat it myself or get a vet to do it. But again, that's just me, I love avian medicine.

It's unfortunate that all your finch's offspring have died. That's why it's always good to have planned breedings where you specifically select the parents, backed up with knowledge in the avian field, versus indiscriminate or accidental breeding, which either lead up to problems immediately or /will/ lead to problems later in the road, perhaps generations later. Finches with good genetic backgrounds and care should reach 10 years (or beyond, in some cases).

I've never had to euthanize any of my pets either. Because of the reasons stated above, I don't think I myself could do it- there's always the minute chance of the miraculous turn-around, you know?
If there would be someone to do it for me, such as a veterinarian, then I would be much more open to the idea and probably would euthanize if it really got that bad. But DIY euthanasia is too hands-on for me, personally- to know that I've killed an animal by my own hands, even if it was necessary, would be to hard to deal with. Especially with pets- my finches are my life and joy.  

[kage no neko]

I kept thinking, what if she recovers from it? Seizures aren't always the end of the bird (although she was having them pretty constantly)... So yeah, I had the same thought, I wasn't completely certain she was actually going to die.

I've only had to have one pet put down... that was a cat who was around 17 years old, and a vet did it. That was hard enough on me, I can't imagine having to live with the thought that I personally killed something that brought me happiness.

And yeah, they're not gonna be making anymore babies. Now mom is left in the one cage all by herself, and dad is in with the society finches (who are all male) and gets along with them pretty well. We gave two of them to his mom, but one of them died.. The one that's left seems to be doing good so far though.  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

I came close to euthanizing my fish once, but he recovered, so I'm even less inclined to do it in the future. But I researched acceptable methods. Don't forget "euthanazia" means kind/gentle deat. It does not mean "killing" your animal as that could be a number of ways. There are many ways to kill a fish for instance. But the clove oil I bought was the only over the counter/ do-it-yourself method that was veterinary approved as a method of "euthanasia"

Suppose for instance, you chose to break it's neck, and you didn't do it properly, you would cause a lot more pain and stress to the bird. suffocation is kind of a crappy way to go. When cats and dogs are euthanized, they are anesthetized BEFORE being given the lethal dose.

I think some times you want to wait for them to survive, but, if say an animal had been suffering for like a week, with no sign of progress, then I'd say whatever chance they miraculously survive is not worth more suffering.  

[Moth Feathers]

kage no neko

I kept thinking, what if she recovers from it? Seizures aren't always the end of the bird (although she was having them pretty constantly)... So yeah, I had the same thought, I wasn't completely certain she was actually going to die.

I've only had to have one pet put down... that was a cat who was around 17 years old, and a vet did it. That was hard enough on me, I can't imagine having to live with the thought that I personally killed something that brought me happiness.

And yeah, they're not gonna be making anymore babies. Now mom is left in the one cage all by herself, and dad is in with the society finches (who are all male) and gets along with them pretty well. We gave two of them to his mom, but one of them died.. The one that's left seems to be doing good so far though.

Mom is all alone?
You should get her a friend (same sex, or a different species). Finches are so sociable, it's really miserable for them to be alone.  

[Mistress of Rain]

Um, I do think about it once in a while. thought about it hard on during Christmas with Warrick, he had a tumor, and the pain meds and antibiotics (they wanted to make sure it wasn't an infection.... ) weren't helping. But since he just started to loose weight, I debated to just let him go with Jethro next to him, but he kept opening his tumor so I took him up to the vet and let them put him down...

When he was out in my hands he seemed a bit more lively but he would just pick when he was in the cage.


I have decided with my gerbils I want them to go naturally unless they went into a severe decline in health/hurting themselves (like Warrick did)  

[Shearaha]

I have personally euthanized several of my mice and one of my rats. I'm lucky in that I'm a vet tech and my workplace will allow me to purchase medications and give them myself at home. With the mice when they started to decline I purchased a mouse sized dose of euthanasia solution, Fatal Plus. I kept it at home until it was obvious that the other things I was doing weren't helping anymore. Then I'd give it and hold them until they passed.
With the rat I used a home made CO2 chamber. She had been declining, but was doing well on her medications, then she started seizing and couldn't breathe. I hadn't gotten the Fatal Plus for her yet because she had been doing so well.

I wouldn't recommend either of the options I chose to the average person. You need to know what you're doing and be able to do it right when the time comes. It's hard and it hurts. But sometimes letting go is the greatest act of love.  

[kage no neko]

Moth Feathers

Mom is all alone?
You should get her a friend (same sex, or a different species). Finches are so sociable, it's really miserable for them to be alone.

One of our budgies has decided he's in the mood and keeps trying to mount his mom.. which we're not wanting babies at all. So he's in with mom finch right now. They get along pretty well. Or rather, she beeps and he looks at her confused. They don't fight at all. Right now another budgie is in there too, since my boyfriend got sick of them yelling for each other, lol.