The Masked Bandit

I'm tell you what.  Our flock of chickens is dwindling.  Tricia counted the birds the other day when she was feeding them and only counted 26.  It is very hard to count them.  They won't stand still when you're counting!  That's not counting the ones that are in the chicken tractor in the back yard.  I counted 32 of them a couple of months ago.  It wasn't that long ago that we had more than double that.  Some died of old age, but many are killed by predators - hawks, possums, minks, owls, raccoons.

In the past it would upset me, but it is just part of having chickens.  You do the very best you can to protect them.  That's all you can do.  I routinely have traps set along the back fence baited up with dog food.  I've caught more possums than you could shake a stick at.  I've even caught the neighbor's cat, which I promptly let loose.  But one morning last week, I caught a critter I had never caught before.

Ricky Raccoon.  He was a young one, but this dude was old enough to be scoping out the flock and plotting to further reduce its size.  He made a fatal mistake, stumbling into the trap.  He's a cute fellow, but he had to be dispatched.  It costs a lot of money to raise a hen to laying size.  Plus, eggs are expensive.  Once the hens are laying eggs, it is quite a loss of revenue and food for the table to have Ricky Raccoon kill them.  This time, the predator became the prey.

I was listening to a very interesting series on Davy Crockett.  As I looked at the coon, I thought seriously about skinning him out and trying to make a coonskin cap like Davy Crockett.  Trouble is, I have a lot of things I need to catch up on.  I'm researching to see if it is worth the time and money to purchase the materials to do my own chimney-sweeping on top of everything else.  Coonskin cap making just didn't fit into the to do list.  I did get the tail, though.  I'll tie it around a walking stick, maybe.  Or put it on the antenna of the truck.  That would add some panache to my travels.

I've got a long history with the masked bandit, Ricky Raccoon.  When I was crawfishing, these bandits would go through my ponds at night and wreak havoc.  They would reach their little hands in the trap, pull out a crawfish, eat the meat in the tail and put the head back in the trap!  The next day I would run my traps and there would be rows with nothing but crawfish heads in them.  Worse than that, they would turn the traps over.  I wouldn't be able to see the traps and inevitably would run over the trap.  Each trap cost $8.75.  Those coons cost me some money.

Pretty soon, I'd had enough.  I would get my Marlin .22 lever action rifle and walk to the woods near the pond.  I figured that the coons would be hiding out there.  Sure enough, I had some minor success when they would climb a tree, full from their night's crawfish platter, and fall asleep in the crook of an oak.  I was able to shoot one or two down.  They are very hard, however, to catch in traps.  They are smart rascals.  I caught a couple in a "bear" trap.  They are curious.  Someone told me that shiny things attract them.  I wrapped aluminum foil around the 'trigger' of the trap.  They saw the shiny stuff, reached their hand to touch it and SNAP!  Curiosity killed the cat raccoon.  You have to act fast, though.  Raccoons will chew their foot off to get out of the trap.

All in all, it is hard trying to raise animals in the midst of predators.  Predators have to eat, too.  I get it.  I just don't want them eating our laying hens.