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Feeding Birds Items That Make Them 'Explode'

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Anonymous

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Stop the pigeon

Another FOAF tale that I hope can be verified/disproven.
Apparently, if you give amphetamines and/or alka selsa to pigeons they will explode.:cross eye
 
Just alka seltzer, and it's seagulls. Because apparently, they can't burp :)

[edit]

Best make it clear that they won't actually explode, but just froth at the beak :)
 
If you could make seagulls explode I am sure the CIA would already be doing some experiments with it.
 
Have you ever wondered how people find these things out?

We have a lot of seagulls and pigeons around here but it's never occured to me to throw them alka seltzer or amphetimines (too expensive!). They'll just have to make do with yesterday's bread.

Jane.
 
mejane said:
Have you ever wondered how people find these things out?


Jane.
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who was the first person to milk a cow, and what was he doing?
 
Has anyone heard this one: if you drink Bailey's and Schweppes on a plane, it kills you - something to do with it swelling up in your stomach and suffocating you.
 
I remember reading that Shaun Ryder, of the Happy Mondays and Black Grape, used to do the old Alker Seltzer thing on pigeons in Manchester town centre.
 
Sally said:
Has anyone heard this one: if you drink Bailey's and Schweppes on a plane, it kills you - something to do with it swelling up in your stomach and suffocating you.
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Nothing could induce me to drink Baileys again, so I guess I'm safe - phew!!

Carole
 
I remember reading that Shaun Ryder, of the Happy Mondays and Black Grape, used to do the old Alker Seltzer thing on pigeons in Manchester town centre.
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Not quite...the anphetamines were closer to the truth. Shaun got annoyed at all the pigeons around the city and so began a crusade to drug them all into oblivion. He claims that he drugged around 500 of them untill he got bored/ran out of money.:cool:
 
The old caretaker at one place I worked claimed, at one time, to have been a trawlerman (along with the other 200 jobs he'd had.... ;) )

Apparently, wrapping some baking soda in bread, and throwing it up into the air for the seagulls to catch results in some quite grisly explosions..... :eek:
 
My old man told me exactly the same thing Derek from his days in the marines. Another trick was to tie the "bait" to a piece of string so they could reel them in! "Bloody things 'll swallow anything!" he'd say.

He was also fascinated that the other gulls would eat the remains of their comrades.

The older generation eh? :p
 
He was also fascinated that the other gulls would eat the remains of their comrades.

Waste not want not.
 
I learned somewhere along the line that you can catch sea gulls by throwing stones wrapped in bread at them , the weight of the stones weighing them down makes them easy to catch .
Marion
 
Are seagulls like albatrosses? Do you have to drape them round yer neck and get all morbid after killing them? :D

I have heard of many grisly ways of torturing defenceless creatures... not this one tho... I know it's annoying when a seagull shits on yer heads so when they explode... ooooh.... the cleaning bills
 
I once heard that if you give a cigarette to a frog or a toad, it will keep on inhaling until it explodes. The things you hear at school eh?
 
JackSkellington said:
Are seagulls like albatrosses? Do you have to drape them round yer neck and get all morbid after killing them? :D
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Bit difficult if they're decorating the entire harbour, I would have thought......:D
 
schnor said:
Just alka seltzer, and it's seagulls. Because apparently, they can't burp :)

[edit]

Best make it clear that they won't actually explode, but just froth at the beak :)
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Bummer. What about phosphorous?
 
You mean sodium, don't you, Xanatic?

I've heard persistant rumours about that in several of the fishing villages I've lived near. I've even met someone who claimed to have done it at school - but he was a bit of a P*ss Artist.

Regarding catching seagulls with a baited line, in O'Briens books about the Napoleonic British Navy he had his seamen catching albatrosses in the same way.
 
An friend told me that if you put soda water or lemonade into a fish tank, the fish'll explode.Is this true???
 
Exploding pigeons

Another thread reawakened an old memory of what must be a UL(?). Apparently, if you somehow manage to feed birds baking powder or bicarbonate of soda, due to their very strong stomach acids it generates a huge amount of CO2 and causes them to explode.

Surely not!
 
It's sort of true and false at the same time - as birds can't burp (god knows who found that out) they just sit there and froth, but not actually explode, although I know for sure that rats can't vomit :)
 
Yeah I've heard that one (even read a webpage somewhere that debunk it, sorry, no addy). UL, although from personal observation I can confirm that the old 'blow-up-a-frog-with-a-straw-until-it-bursts' one is true. I think the one about slowly raising the temperature of a pan of cold water so the frog lets itself be boiled to death is also false, don't know about the one where you put a banana skin on a cat's back and it loses it sense of balance and the one about a chicken going to sleep if you put it's head under it's wing is, I think, true. I've also heard sheep, like pigeons and dogs, have a very strong homing instinct.
 
This has been done before. See "Stop the pigeon" in the urban legends section.
Though I would definately lose all sense of balance if some joker put a banana skin on my back.
 
http://www.petersononline.com/birds/bwd/features/0697-myths.shtml
Link is dead. Here's an excerpt from the MIA webpage regarding the rice myth ...
Bird-watching Myths
What they all have in common is that they are not true.

You should not throw rice at the bride and groom at weddings because birds eat it and it swells up in their stomach and kills them.

Sometimes the myth goes on to say that it causes them to explode.

Not true. If it were, there would be exploding bird stories all over the national press every June. Think about it. Lots of birds feast in rice fields every year, irritating rice farmers to distraction. If eating rice caused birds to explode, most rice fields would look like a popcorn machine in the harvest season, with little puffs and explosions providing constant entertainment. Quite a vision, and one that the press would never miss.

There is no difference, save the hulls, between rice in fields and rice in bags from the supermarket. Birds have no trouble digesting rice, or any other "expanding" vegetable. I am all in favor of throwing birdseed at weddings, which is what proponents of this myth urge as a solution. I like the symbolism of throwing birdseed, especially at bird watchers. But rice is fine, too.
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SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:

https://web.archive.org/web/2002061...nline.com/birds/bwd/features/0697-myths.shtml
 
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http://www.petersononline.com/birds/bwd/features/0697-myths.shtml
Link is dead. Here's an excerpt from the MIA webpage regarding the exploding seagull myth ...
Bird-watching Myths
What they all have in common is that they are not true.

Exploding gulls.

Another exploding bird myth. I wonder why we are so attached to myths where something blows up. It must be the drama.

This myth proposes that if you feed a gull an Alka Seltzer tablet, it will swallow the offering, and when the lethal charge gets into the stomach and dissolves, the expanding gases will cause the bird to explode. Every year there is another story about some mean kids doing this. Oddly, it usually involves New Jersey.

After you stop giggling at the image of gulls exploding like flying land mines all over the Jersey shore, the unlikelihood of the myth starts to intrude. If it were true, it would be a big story. I can see the coverage now: Dan Rather in his safari jacket, standing on the windswept coast, hair blowing in the wind, gull feathers raining down in the background; PBS specials (who can resist the vision of a gull, cheerfully flying along and then suddenly exploding, right in front of the camera?); exposes in the tabloids.

If the body could not handle a little Alka Seltzer without an explosion, it wouldn't be legal to sell the stuff over the counter. If it caused gulls to explode, there would be a rash of reports every year. I do not know the physiological process by which the body processes a tablet swallowed whole (and I have no interest in trying it), but I assume it involves, among other things, a fair amount of belching and a slightly gassy feeling. Actually, if I ate some of the stuff that gulls do, I would be thrilled to have a little relief, but they seem to do fine without it.
Click to expand...
SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:

https://web.archive.org/web/2002061...nline.com/birds/bwd/features/0697-myths.shtml
 
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Didnt the mighty Shaun Ryder feed the pigeons in central Manchester with rice thereby causing them to explode when he was a kid. Fair play really, I love animals but pigeons-rats with wings.
 
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