mr. coon and me had a moment the other night.

Update on farm status

8-06-2015

 Mr. Coon Likes Chickens Better Than I Do

 whitey and old red showing off some of their survival skills -debating why to cross the road.

      Only Mr. Coon likes to eat my chickens, having dwindled my population of 8 chickens down to 3 and requiring other options to protect the remaining chickens, Mr.  Coon has found himself in the position of having the upper hand for now. But I am working on other options to protect the 3 that is left, including adding more wire. I couldn’t believe a coon could carry a chicken up over the side of a chicken wire fence after having apparently killed it in the pen. Never leaving anything more than a pile of feathers, it almost had me believing, someone was coming into the pen and stealing them.

     One by one, Mr. Coon would take his bounty and carry them off without even a sign of where they have went. I did find one of my female ducks with her neck thrashed and lying dead by the my rotting hay bales where Mama Duck and her daughter had set up shop, setting on separate piles of eggs in nests nestled in the hay, and standing watch day in and day out until apparently Mr. Coon came happenstance on their nests, and the younger female duck who no doubt tried to protect her nest came to an end, only to be treated as a dinner treat. Mama Duck I believe had a little more instinct about her as her nest was overrun by Mr. Coon obliterating the eggs, only Mama Duck may have also protested, but only long enough to save herself  because she knew she could have another nest and she did eventually.

     In fact it was Mama Duck who showed her other daughter a safe place by my door where she could have a nest, while herself  sought out another spot to be only consumed by Mr.Coon I suppose eventually, as I never was able to find anything of her either. It is kind of sad and frustrating to watch animals go one by one, but this is as nature predicts it should be. Coons need to eat, but why so damn much? Anyhow it did give me cause to reflect on what steps I could take to improve the safety of my chickens at least. The ducks are a hearty breed and one could hardly train or protect them better than they can themselves.

     The ducks have taken to swimming in the pond all night, constantly staying out of reach of Mr. Coon hopefully. Their main vulnerable time is when they are sitting on their nest. The main reason I know it is a coon doing all the damage is that I have seen him. I don’t own a gun but would have shot the asshole as he perched himself above my head 40 feet in the air on a dark night a few nights ago,  after hearing a commotion on the pond and after seeking the tree limbs out with a flashlight , finally caught sight of him in the tree tops. Knowing he can climb quite well it was evident that my chicken house had flaws. He was scared and for good reason he has been found out and his presence has required me to take other steps to prevent any more drain from my livestock quantity.

      Still don’t know what to do about the ducks, they won’t stay in a house, and you can’t corral them at night as they don’t really roost. But the chickens I took preventative action with. Old Whitey I have had for quite a while and she is battle hardened, knowing and seeing some of her own kind being dispatched with before, she knew the best places to roost and when Mr. Coon came a calling before she left the roost and decided to hang around in the Magnolia tree right outside my front living room. This protected her in the middle of winter despite being cold as heck till the threat passed.

    She had shown resolve to be able to survive, so I thought it was best to move the last three chickens to the garage and for a couple of nights.  I would wait till they roosted, and I gathered them up and moved them to the garage to try and protect them by letting Whitey show them the ropes. With Whitey I still have 4 chickens and just the other day I found a blue egg which is Whitey’s trademark. I had heard cackling and thought it was one of my new chickens starting to lay, instead I believe it was Whitey who at her advanced age , still tries her best to produce.

     Anyhow I am revamping and coon proofing my security at the chicken house so I can get these guys into production. It always seems to be a struggle to try and figure out what to do about a pest problem in an advanced non –killing way. Knowing that nature has to have balance, but although the coon eats my chickens , I have no desire for coon meat , so I instead must devise ways to prevent Mr. Coon or deter him from coming around in the first place. I have left Babe, my dog out the last couple of nights by her own choice, and last night I could hear her barking all night long it seemed, and at times out by the chicken house . Hopefully she was able to protect the ducks and chickens, but I have yet to make it outside to check for sure. Still I had heard the ducks earlier, and so I know for sure some of them are all right.

mama duck on left , mr gooser , two of mama ducks boys. only one is left now thanks to mr. coon

     If coon proofing and Babe doesn’t work, I am going to buy a have –a-hart trap and try and bait the coon to the trap, and if that doesn’t work, will see if I can find someone to do some coon hunting against my will. But when it comes down to a wild animal taking the food out of my mouth and wasting my labor , I feel it is justified to take drastic steps to prevent Mr. Coon from sitting around licking his little chicken soaked fingers.

     Yesterday while starting the coon proofing I found that my chicken house is also a safe harbor for a collection of bats numbering at least four or more. To me this is a good thing and reason to build bat houses and hang them around the chicken house as I would rather have the bats there, than setting up residence in Mom or my house. Bats are part of an insect control solution at times devouring up to twice their body weight in bugs nightly. This would mean thousands of bugs. I have seen numerous bats at darkness flying around and not knowing where exactly they are coming from, this find gives me a better idea as to where they are staying. Bat houses would encourage them to stay outside the chicken house instead of within.  Beneficial aspects of nature are the how checks and balances, seem to exist in almost every corner of our world. Bees help pollinate. Bats seek out insect populations and control them. Almost everything has a purpose as I suppose the grasshopper has in life. We are a long way from understanding how Mr. Coon affects the whole scheme of life.  At this point I could hardly care.