I often think of myself as a farm girl at heart. I love being out in the country, I like chickens, and I don’t mind the smell of manure. But yesterday I got to practice being a farm girl in a little different way. My poor little bird, Pi, was badly bitten by one of our other birds. His leg was bitten above the foot, and the bone was broken and sticking out of the leg, and bleeding. This is the same bird who has other health issues, and has really not been getting better, so I knew it was not worth trying to get his leg fixed or his foot amputated. (That would mean a trip to Champaign. No vets here in town would touch it.) He just needed to be put to sleep. But local vets wanted between $40-$50 just to euthanize my bird, and I felt there had to be a more economical way.
Michael researched online how to humanely put a bird to sleep, and found a suggestion I decided to follow. With sadness in my heart, I prepared a small ice-cream bucket, put a cloth in the bottom, and put a cotton ball soaked with nail-polish remover (acetone) in it. I gently put Pi in the bucket and wished him a farewell. The process took longer than I anticipated, but eventually Pi was finally at peace. No more pain in his tail, and no more pain in his foot.
Still, it feels odd to have control over the life of a creature like that. I don’t so much like that side of having to be a “farm girl”. That’s the dirty work. But it’s the stuff that has to be done.
I bid farewell to my poor little bird who had such a tough life with us. Good bye, my dear Pi Bird.
This morning I buried Pi out front near Romeo’s grave. Then I planted miniature irises on his grave.