Excessive post-mortem movement from a brained rabbit?

[Arizona_Mike]

Forgive the topic but I am discussing this because I don't like messy kills. I take pride in clean kills and messy kills don't feel good in my guts. I accidentally gut-shot a large rabbit (with a 5.56 V-Max) who had tried to hide under a bush. Usually a double lung shot stops them in their tracks. It stopped cold after a quick follow-up shot.

I saw the normal postmortem rhythmic motions and then it stopped moving. A couple minutes later, it started raising its tail and one hind leg skyward. I approached and saw it was half disemboweled and still twitching. Then it farted. I saw no breathing. The gut shot had half-disemboweled it and broken the right front leg (radius and ulna) just above the foot. I touched the paw of the broken leg and it raised the leg up while shaking it in a shivering motion for about 5 shakes, then retracted it and laid it down. I turned it over and saw that my second shot had brained it (I could see into a huge hole). No way it was alive.

I was upset at what I saw and then really puzzled when I saw that rabbit had no brain. When Googling postmortem movement, the first thing that came up was "Lazarus sign" (postmortem spinal-cord mediated limb reflexes) which described what I saw with the leg movement pretty accurately right down to the shivering. I think touching the broken paw sent a strong nerve signal to the spinal column resulting in the reflex.

Mike

 

[nettlle]

I have seen a lot of post mortem movement from a snapping turtle that I had cut the head off. And a chicken the same.

 

[caribou]

Normal, get used to it if you hunt more. Worse than that, is a Rabbits scream.....holy cow.....

 

[buck460XVR]

You said the rabbit farted. The movement you saw could have been made by the gases produced because of the mixing of the body fluids by the gut shot, and not by any conscious brain activity. You are over thinking this. Even if it was "Lazarus sign", the rabbit did not feel it, nor did it move voluntarily.

 

[CraigC]

I've head shot rabbits that shot up into a tree and then danced & jumped all over the place for a solid minute. Deader than fried chicken but still moving.

 

[courtgreene]

Head shot deer move more (in my experience) and for longer than most of the double lung shot deer I've seen. It's odd. They don't have the coordination to GO anywhere like those hit in the lungs sometimes do, but they twitch longer.

 

[wankerjake]

Sometimes with head shots the nerves go for quite awhile. I agree with everyone else though, he was dead, electrical impulses firing after death is just part of dying. Little different than the movies where stuff just rolls over dead. So it goes.

 

[OYE]

First horse that had to be put down many years ago, we had a vet do it. Supposed to be the humane way to do it. An injection that basically stops the heart. Ever have or talk to anyone who had a heart attack ? Being painless isn't the way it's usually described. We watched the Humane Society putting down dogs with an injection to the heart with a very long needle. Same deal.

So after the first horse we decided the bullet to the brain is the only way to go.
Absolutely painless, lights out. A little movement from internal muscles relaxing, maybe some stray voltage in the nervous system, that's it. And we've put a lot of them down. But we owe it to them, if they get injured or become infirm, when just normal day to day living is painful. They can't lay on the couch and just watch TV. OYE

 

[Arizona_Mike]

You said the rabbit farted. The movement you saw could have been made by the gases produced because of the mixing of the body fluids by the gut shot, and not by any conscious brain activity. You are over thinking this. Even if it was "Lazarus sign", the rabbit did not feel it, nor did it move voluntarily.

I did not consider the fart a sign of life. Probably the sphincter relaxing after death. What was surprising was movement in response to my touch (probably a spinal reflex like pulling your had away from a hot stove). Until I turned the rabbit over and saw the huge hole in his skull I thought he was still alive.

I'd just gotten used to the double lung shot taking them down so quickly. I think respiratory failure takes the whole system (brain, brain stem, and spinal cord) down together as a unit. When brain communication is lost suddenly it seems nerve activity in the the spinal column tends to go haywire like the proverbial chicken with it's head cut off.

Mike

 

[EmbarkChief]

Never knew this activity had a name until now. I agree with the above poster about head shots having more "movement" than others on white tail deer in particular. Some notable experiences that I've had;

1. White Tailed Deer shot to back of head with a .243. Deer fell behind a bush out of sight and then approx 5 min later got up and ran approx 35 yards before falling down permanently. The brain tissue that was left in her head was no bigger than the size of an acorn.

2. Skinned, gutted, head removed carcass of a deer would react to touch along its breastbone. Muscle twitch and legs trying to run.

 

[MtnCreek]

Every rabbit I've headshot did a backflip and was dead on landing.

 

[gamestalker]

Back in January I shot a big jacky with my .357, full house 140 gr. JHP. I hit him real good right through the chest cavity, but he got up and tried to run anyway. He wandered around for a good 3 or 4 minutes until I finally caught up to him and finished him off with a round to the head.

Turkey are probably the worst for postmortem activity that I've ever seen. I've almost lost a few gobblers over the years due to this. One spring morning I shot a gob at relatively close range, 2 ounce load of copper plated BB to the head from about 15 yards. The bird went down like he got hit with a brick, then about 30 seconds into his postmortem death beat, he gets up and flies about 75 yards and up into a tree. A good minute had gone by before I was where I could pump another load into him, and just as I was about to pull the trigger, he went limp and fell to the ground. When I looked him over, I saw that one side of his head had a pretty significant chunk of skull blown out along with the eye on that side.

GS

 

[DeepSouth]

I've had more than one snake with no head strike at me, occasionally even hitting me with the nub that Used to have a head attached to it.
Now that will freak you out, at least it will me.

 

[WestKentucky]

I have only headshot 1 rabbit. Normally I go for chest if if using a rifle. The one I headshot was with a pellet rifle. In one eye and out the other. That joker kept doing backflips. First one was instant and strong. About 5 ft straight up with at least 2 full rotations, then flopping and kicking enough to get at least 2 more flips in. After that shot it was back to chest, even with the pellet rifle

 

[AKElroy]

As others stated, I've noted far more dirt-dancing from brained animals. I do not typically head shoot deer, but many years ago, a large axis doe at 15 yards under my stand gave a good presentation for it. Even though I could see daylight through her vacant cranium, she still spun in the dirt for 3-5 minutes. It was troubling, but with lots of brained varmints and pigs later, it is very common IME. I've had a couple of zombie coons crawl towards me after being brained out of a tree. Creepy, but no one is home.

 

[AKElroy]

I failed to mention that rabbits are the worst for post-brained dancing IME. I head shot my first with a .22 when I was 10 Or 11, it was disturbing. I ruined it with several follow-up shots.

 

[EmbarkChief]

DeepSouth nailed it. Snakes. They last forever.

As a side note, and maybe I'm weird to think of this, but are humans the same way? I've seen many different animals do the "funky chicken dance" after a headshot, any reason to believe we are any different?

 

[J-Bar]

Normal difference between species.

Cattle stunned for slaughter with a captive bolt or gunshot to the forehead will drop like a sack of rocks and remain motionless. Hogs stunned for slaughter with a head shot will usually convulse and flop around for a while.

Absence of rhythmic breathing and absence of corneal reflex (blinking when the eye is touched) are among the things used to judge unconsciousness in a packing house.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Attractor network - http://sciencenordic.com/why-do-headless-chickens-run

 

[Geoffo]

I've shot a handful of wild Bulls with my 243, the best way to put the lights out on these dangerous Bulls with a 100gr bullet is in the brain box, drop on the spot, no movement.
I've shot hundreds of rabbits with a 22, mostly head shots, cause we eat em, a few get jumpin around, hares really jump too.
I've shot many foxes mostly in the head too, drop on the spot, no movement.
I've shot quite a few black snakes in the head with a 22, then removed the head or what's left of it and then whilst skinning them, they have posed in the typical striking position and struck me on the hand. As was mentioned earlier that scared the **** out of me!

 

[zdc1775]

With animals my personal worst experience was with an armadillo that I shot from about 5 feet with a 12 gauge while walking back to the house after a day of dove hunting. It had less than a half inch of its head left after the shot but proceeded to perform flips for what seemed like 5 minutes (probably only 45-60 seconds). The only other one that stands out in my memory was a squirrel I head shot with a .22. It stayed almost perfectly motionless with the top portion of its head missing for at least 30 seconds while I walked up to the tree limb it was on and reached to grab it. As soon as I touched it, it shot about five or six feet up the limb, hit the trunk of the tree, fell to the ground, and kicked a fem more times.

As a side note, and maybe I'm weird to think of this, but are humans the same way? I've seen many different animals do the "funky chicken dance" after a headshot, any reason to believe we are any different?

They do occasionally. Read Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills, its the story of Carlos Hathcock. One shot in particular I remember from that book talks about a farmer the VC had firing shots at the Marines every evening. When shot through the head he flopped enough to trample a ten foot circle in the field he was in.

 

[buck460XVR]

I did not consider the fart a sign of life.

Me either, just thinking maybe the escaping gases may have contributed to the rabbits movement.

Death is never pretty, even when it's a bang flop, still as a stone. Certain animals have more muscle control in the spinal column than others. Many times they are prey animals like rabbits that use quickness and speed to escape their predators. Any experienced hunter will tell you very few kills end the exact same way. As hunters we strive to make death as quick and as painless as it can be to our quarry. Don't always work that way, but most of us try. Head shot animals move after death for a multitude of reasons. If they really are brain dead, the movement is involuntary and not a sign of suffering. But.....brain dead animals do not get back up, fly away and land in trees. They may have been shot in the head, but they were not hit in the brain or spinal column. They were hit some where else and had to bleed out to die, if the shot did indeed kill them. Over the years I have shot several Toms and witnessed others shoot Toms in the head only to see them get backup and run/fly off. Many times when recovered there were BB holes thru the beak, waddles, caruncle and snood with massive tissue damage. But because of the small holes in the shot column's pattern, the brain itself was not hit. Flying and landing in a tree takes eyesight and thought processes. Something not available when the brain is dead. This is why I never take my gun off a downed bird until I see no movement, or run to retrieve them immediately before celebrating. While their deathflop is like cutting off a chickens head, their getting up and trying to make a escape is not.

 

[Davek1977]

Having shot mammals, birds and reptiles of all shapes and sizes, I've come to conclude you can never fully predict how an animal will respond to being shot. I've witnessed various things I'd believe to be impossible if I hadn't witnessed it myself. It amazing watching an 900 cow die iinstantly from a .22lr behind the ear, and witnessing a rabbit, 4 lbs at best, scamper off a few feet and look at you after a similarly placed shot, needing a follow-up shot.

 

[TimSr]

Generally, the less a species relies on its brain, and the more it relies on spinal reflexes, the more it will moved when brain is unplugged. Fish, reptiles, and amphibians don't much need an intact brain for motor functions.

 

[CoRoMo]

Yep, snakes. The rattlers we'd shoot and take home during pheasant season would get decapitated, gutted and skinned before putting them in the freezer. But that never stopped them from continuing to crawl around the freezer from one shelf up to the next before coiling up in a final spot to turn solid. Crazy.

Having put down uncountable numbers of livestock and game over my lifetime still hasn't worn away the willies when I see an animal keep going on for longer than the usual few seconds. My son's first rabbit; he hit it right in the temple with his BB gun and it went to flipping. It was a perfect brain pop, but it went on for a few minutes before I whacked it in the back of the neck with a rod. It didn't really bother me so much because I almost expect that from rabbits now. It bothered me that his first rabbit did that and he had to watch it.

Miracle Mike the headless chicken is an interesting old story. He lived for a year and a half. It takes very little CNS tissue to keep on trucking for some critters.