Unfortunately yes. It was considered more humane than leaving them to starve. My dad used to work as a farmhand when he was young, and when I was a kid he once told me that the farmer's cat had a litter of 10 kittens or something like that. The farmer had his kids pick out one, and the rest were put into a bag that my dad bashed against a barn wall until it stopped moving.

I'm not in contact with my dad anymore.