This uncle of mine is fond of keeping birds , big cages with parakeets, lovebirds, pheasants , multiple fowl species (including some rare ones like karaknaath, meenarka etc)
The direct attack used to be on the bird feed and there was no respite from it , so he tried poison , one of the empty cage was baited with tasty titbits with lethal rat poison , by some uncanny quirk the coots mangaed to transport this titbits to pheasants and one beautfull silver and one reeves went down , adding insult was that rats seemed to relish this rat poison and flourish , these two dead birds were sent to me and i went over to hear the sad tale told above,
i suggested using traps to which he retorted that these fellows big as raabbits take the trap with them and do not fit-in the other type (mouse trap).
I had earlier advised him to use a air rifle but he was aprehensive about recocheting pellets hitting the birds, however this was the day nothing worse could happen so one of my air-rifles was put to action and result so impressed him that now every time i meet him he has some interesting tales where he has upper hand on the coots with an IHP .177
I totally agree with skeetshot on the appearance of pack is quite a sight enough to shake the staunchest buffalo hunter
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the room where I keep most of my STUFF while I live on the first floor) and tried shooting it. I missed and it ran from one corner to the next. Finally I had no option but to spike it with a goopti (a 50 buck sword cane I bought from a village fair while in school) through a tiny gap from where I could see a part of its body. I stabbed it seven or eight times but the monster wouldn't die. It kept crying at the top of its voice even as I kept it pinned to the ground. Made of soft steel, the tip of the spike got twisted into a question mark. Finally, after 15 minutes of spiking, or jabbing you could say by now, it was all quiet on the home front. I tossed it in an alley where I knew his mates were waiting. They ran towards the copse to perform the last rites. But by then I had loaded two springers. One got shot and fell. But I missed the other as usual. 
) with cocking and loading and pumping spring and pneumatic air rifles/pistols. PCPs and Co2s with magazines have made their entry into India only in recent years and I don't own one yet. A few years ago, out of sheer desperation, I downed more than a dozen big rodents with .22 shorts using a pump action Winchester in the backyard of my family's country home where we store food grain. Had a blast all day actually. But you can't do that in a city and amid such built up habitation areas. ITS DANGEROUS AND NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL. Moreover, I can't even kill too many at a time because the only way to dispose the bodies is to feed the cats and crows and wait for the municipality garbage vans to arrive the next morning and take away the rest of the mess. If it doesn't come, you are stuck with a bag full of foul smelling dead rodents and your wife screaming inside your ears 
