A Time To Kill

A mink or minks devastated our flock of hens.  I talked to a neighbor down the road and minks wiped out his neighbor's entire flock.  It's not just us.  Misery loves company, I presume, but that doesn't make it any better.  So I began putting a plan into action.  This plan involves retribution.  I gutted all fifteen of the hens that the mink killed and collected it all in a bucket.  Then, for a couple days, I hunted squirrels in the yard, killed 14 of them and added their guts to my bucket.

This may look nasty to you, but to a varmint, like a mink that likes smelly, bloody stuff, this is heaven.

I put a little bit of everything in the back of the trap to try to entice the mink to pay a visit.  You can see a chicken head, a squirrel tail, gizzards and entrails.  Looks appetizing... for a varmint.  The trap is set, along with two others, and we'll see if we're successful in the morning.

We were only somewhat successful.  I caught the neighbor's cat.  She wasn't happy, but she wasn't hurt.  I let her go.  I didn't tell the neighbors.  No harm. No foul.  Let's bait up and try again.

The next night, something had gotten into the trap, eaten the bait, and escaped somehow.  In fact, one of the traps had been drug out into the woods.  I fixed that issue by wiring the trap to the fence.  We'll bait up and try again.

Well, looky here.  In the snap trap, we seem to have caught a fat possum.  

But that's not what we're targeting.  I want to catch the mink that's responsible for the death of so many of our chickens.  And lo and behold, we finally caught the mink!!!

After the arraignment, the perpetrator was given a speedy trial and was found guilty.  At the sentencing, the jury passed down the death penalty.  The sentence was carried out swiftly and efficiently on the mink.

I will continue to bait up the traps nightly, until I catch everything or until I run out of guts in my bucket.

Hopefully, our hens will be spared from the murderous nightly rampages that they've been subject to here lately.

The Headless Hen

 

"That's it. I've had it with this dump! We've got no food, we got no jobs,... our pets' HEADS ARE FALLIN' OFF!!!"  Quote from the movie Dumb and Dumber

Why am I thinking about a quote from Dumb and Dumber?  Well, I walked out to the barn this morning to do as we always do - morning chores.  It's always a pretty sight in the morning.  The sun is just coming up in the east and the sun's rays are filtering through the live oak and pecan trees, casting long shadows westward across the pasture.  I stopped to just soak in the view and stillness of the morning.  The roosters suddenly break the silence with loud crows that echo across the property.  Sometimes I feel like screaming in the morning, too, but not today.  It is a nice day.

But then, I notice that something isn't right.   Just to the west of the barn and south of the garden, I spot a Barred Rock hen.  She's laying down like chickens do when they are taking a dust bath.  Except, she's not taking a dust bath.  She's got no head.

Overnight, some critter killed her, leaving her body intact, but taking her head.  From past experience, I'm guessing that the predator is either a raccoon or an owl.  They are both notorious for this.  This was a big, fat hen.  You can see that dark yellow fat lining her breast on the just-killed carcass.  She was healthy and would have laid many more eggs for us.  But her egg-laying days are done.

Driving to church today, there was a huge raccoon dead on Louisiana Highway 26, not far, as the crow flies, from the pasture where the headless hen lays.  I hope the bandit that killed our hen is the one that's in the middle of the road.  An eye for an eye, as the Good Book says.  But if an owl is the culprit, and you'll remember that I posted a photo of a big barn owl in our front yard last month, then we've got big problems.  It is illegal to kill an owl.  What to do?  I did catch yet ANOTHER possum in my cage trap last night, but I don't think its possums that are doing the killing this time.

Well, that's where Belle, our livestock guardian dog, a Great Pyrenees, comes in. 

We've tried several times to let her free in the pasture to guard the cows, chickens and goats.  At first, she didn't quite understand her job description and would kill the chickens.  This wasn't working.  Then, when we think she had that worked out of her system, she'd jump over the perimeter fence and would roam all over the place.  There's several problems with that.  The neighbors aren't keen with the idea of a big dog roaming through their property.  Then, she doesn't understand the busy road.  She crosses it with reckless abandon.  We don't want her to get hit like the raccoon we talked about earlier.

I am going to start researching one of those collars that allows you to roam so many feet before a light shock is administered to hopefully keep her at home.  I'll report back with what I learn.  One way or another, we've got to solve our predation dilemma.  

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

We've had a visitor in our barn almost every night for the past couple of months.  He's leaving his calling card - piles of poop all over the hay.  It looked like possum poop to me.  Funny thing is, there were no chickens missing.  Possums kill chickens.  When they do, they leave most of the carcass behind.  It's always frustrated me because I think, "If you're gonna kill my chickens, eat them.  Clean your plate.  Don't kill them and leave most of the body behind.  That's very wasteful."

So our culprit was not killing our laying hens, but was in the barn.  Why was he coming in the barn?  I got to thinking about it and discussing it with Tricia and we both noticed that we haven't seen ANY rats in the barn.  We researched and found that possums DO eat rats.  So perhaps this possum is doing us a favor and cleaning out the rats.  But there's another variable.  We know that there is also a big rat snake in the barn taking care of the rats, too.  We were' leaving him (or her) alone until it goes in the henhouse, then it must die.

In the photo below, you can see the hole that the possum has made to enter into the corner of the northwest corner of the barn.  If you zoom in, you can see several of the many piles of possum poo.

What to do?  In the words of a song by The Clash back in the 80's, "Should he stay or should he go?"  If he goes, then our rat problem will rebound, especially with wintertime coming and the snake won't be hunting until it warms up.  If he stays, there will come a time when the rat population is diminished (like it is now) and the possum will shift his prey to one of the laying hens in the hen house.  We can't have that.

So with that decision made, I baited up my cage trap with some Pedigree Dog food.  Possums are the easiest animal to catch.  In two days, I had a big, hissing possum in the cage.

Benjamin was home, so I had him grab his rifle and go put him down and compost him.  We will keep an eye on the rat population in the barn.  Hopefully, in the possum's absence, we won't see a population explosion.  Possums poop on the hay and the animals don't like that on the hay.  I wouldn't either!  However, rats poop and pee on the hay and the animals don't like that either.  It's tough to balance these things out!

The Homestead Lady, In the Barn, With a Pipe

I walked out to the barn the other night to give Tricia a hand with the animals.  We have a real rodeo going on right now with two cows in milk, one bred cow, three goats, a five day old doeling, Ninety-something laying hens, one broody hen that has a week old baby chick she's taking care of.  Not to mention the 47 meat birds that are approaching six weeks old and Belle, our four month old Great Pyrenees puppy, that has recently begun to play too rough with the laying hens and killed them.  It keeps us on our toes, for sure.  It keeps us young, I like to tell myself.

As I walked in the barn, Tricia had just dispensed with a baby possum that was in the barn, presumably to kill and eat the defenseless baby chick.  All Tricia could find was a pipe in the corner of the barn for her weapon of choice, but that did the trick.  The next day I killed another one in the barn and the day following, one drowned in the water bucket in the barn.  Where there are baby possums, there's a momma and daddy possum.  I need to set a trap in the woods behind the hen house.


Chickens Checking out the Dead Baby Possum

Predators come and go and at times, trying to get to our chickens.  Hawks give them fits in the wintertime.  Possums get after 'em in the spring and summer.  Chicken Snakes (rat snakes)eat the chickens' eggs in the spring and summer.  We've killed numerous chicken snakes here lately and so far, three ceramic eggs are missing.  That means 3 chicken snakes have a fatal case of constipation and will die.

But like in the game of Clue, and to to solve the mystery of the dead baby possum in the photo above, I know who did it.   It was the Homestead Lady, In the Barn, With a Pipe!  I win.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men

We attending Morning Services this morning and then got home, ate leftover Thanksgiving lunch, had coffee, and then headed back to town.  At 2 pm we were to meet for our annual church caroling trip.  Our group got a little smaller this year.  One of the founding members of our church that attending the caroling last year passed away.

We first went to the Veteran's Administration Home in town.  We put on services every third Wednesday night at the VA, and it was nice to meet up and sing for these patriots that served our country.  One of the men who attends our services met us while we caroled.  He was so very appreciative of us coming.  He is 97 years old and is a WWII Veteran!  One of our members' granddaughters was caroling and he was so happy to see her singing.  He had the quote of the day.  He moved his wheelchair close to her, asked her name and told her, "You are prettier than a red heifer in a field full of clover!"  I gotta remember that one.

We went into the common areas of the VA Home and then the two other Nursing Homes in town.  One of the homes we have services the fourth Wednesday of every month and the other, we have services there on the third Sunday of every month.  We have gotten to know the residents at each place and it is such a joy to go serve them.

We went into the Alzheimer's Units and the residents sang along with us.  We walked down the halls singing and stopped at patient's doors and sang for them.  Even though we're Christmas caroling, one resident always has us sing "In the Garden."  People were so warm and welcoming to us.  Others cried tears of happiness as they sang.  It's one of those times where you go do something, intending to be a blessing and you leave receiving more of a blessing than you expected.

When we finished, we met back at the church in the Fellowship Hall and had a devotion, fellowship time and refreshments.  The whole day just left me with a warm feeling in my heart...  UNTIL -

It was dark by the time we got home and I headed out to the barn.  Rosie isn't going to milk herself.  I also had to gather eggs and feed the chickens.  I turned on the lights to the hen house, but surprisingly, the hens were cackling and running around in the corral.  Something was not right.  I walked int the hen house and saw a dead Rhode Island Red hen on the ground.

A huge possum was eating it!  I quickly grabbed a 2 x 4 and knocked the possum in the head and then quickly killed it.  I know varmints have to eat, too, but they are not going to each our chickens and get away with it, if I have anything to do with it.  

What an afternoon!  From singing Christmas carols to bludgeoning a possum.  The song says, "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."  It says nothing about goodwill to possums.

Slow Time of the Year for Eggs

At this time of the year, egg production really takes a hit.  The shortened days and dark and gloomy weather coupled with not much grass to eat and bugs to munch on means that if we pick up seven or eight eggs, it is a big day.  In the springtime, we'll pick up ten times that amount in a day.

We have around 100 hens and during the big production months, we give away or sell the eggs our family can't eat.  We bring some to church and then we'll normally have our sign out by the road selling our excess, but these days, we pulled up our egg sign and brought it back to the house.  It'll go back up in the spring.  Maybe we'll have to touch it up a little!  It is looking kind of rough...

Speaking of eggs and chickens, as I was opening up the egg boxes in the hen house last Saturday, I glanced in the woods behind the hen house and something caught my eye.  Something seemed out of place.  I opened the back gate and walked and found this grisly sight:

It was a fresh kill.  Overnight some predator feasted on one of our Rhode Island Red hens.  If I had to guess, I would assume an owl or a hawk did this as it took the hen over the fence in order to feast on her.  The predator didn't even finish eating.  If you look into the center of the photo you can see the hen's untouched gizzard.  Further to the right, you can see her liver. 

Especially during this time of year, we lose a few birds to predators.  That's going to happen.  I don't get too worked up about it.  I did set up our cage trap in the woods near where I found the remains of the hen and the very next night, I caught a big, fat possum.  I don't thing the possum was responsible, but let's just say there's one less possum roaming around at night.  Normally the chickens run into the goat barn when predators are in the area.  This one just wasn't quick enough, I guess. 

Patricia's Pesky Possum

A few nights ago we had separated Clarabelle from her baby calf, Astro, for the first time so that we would get the milk in the morning before Astro drank it all.  Clarabelle woke Tricia up at 1:30 am moo-ing incessantly.  I did not hear her.  An m1a1 Abrams tank could bust through the wall of our bedroom and I would sleep right through it.  Tricia was worried that Clarabelle's hollering would make all of our neighbors hate us so she walked out to the barn at 1:30 am to put the momma and baby together. 

She told me about this the next morning and then told me that while she was out there, she saw a possum in the hen house.  I put traps out to catch the possum, but for the next two consecutive nights we caught nothing in the trap and a possum killed two chickens!  This morning, however, we tasted victory - a big fat possum was caught in the trap!  He was "playing possum," pretending to be asleep.

Ah, but he was not asleep.  As I got closer, he hissed and bared his teeth at me.  I noticed that he had thrashed around in the trap and bent it up and broke the 'flapper' off, but that can be fixed.

I carried the trap with the live possum in it to the garden, which will be the place of interment.  We find that possums add fertility to the soil.  I prepared a shallow grave with a shovel and then had an idea.

I went inside the house and asked Tricia if she'd like to humanely put down 'her' possum.  She's always up for adventure and said, "Sure, why not?"  I got my Marlin .22 rifle down and showed her how to pull the hammer back and fire it and she took care of business.

Tricia's possum will no longer visit the hen house in the middle of the night, striking fear in the hearts of our hens.  The time of death was 8:43 am.

As the dirt was covering the possum, I noticed that the grave was between some Red Romaine lettuce and Bull's Blood Beets and it reminded me of something.

In elementary school we read a very sad novel called "Where the Red Fern Grows."  At the end of the tear-jerker, Billy's dog, 'Old Dan' was killed by a mountain lion and was buried and a red fern grew right near it.  It was a very sad book and the red romaine near the possum's grave reminded me.  One big difference though - I'm not really sad about losing yet another chicken-killer.  Just to be safe, I have the traps set again tonight!

We're Caught In a Trap...

Elvis Presley sang a song called, "Suspicious Minds" that started with the following lyrics:

We're caught in a trap

I can't walk out

Because I love you too much baby

Why can't you see

What you're doing to me

When you don't believe a word I say?

I found myself singing that song this afternoon and you'll soon know why.  After catching 6 rats in 5 days in a trap I set in the garden, I stopped catching them.  Perhaps I caught all the ones that were venturing into the garden, but I saw two in the barn the other evening.  I figured I would mix things up a little bit and move the trap into the barn to thin out the population there.  Actually, I want to do more than thin them out - I want to eradicate them.  This morning at 5:30 a.m. when I flipped on the lights in the barn, this is what I found:

"I'm caught in a trap.  I can't walk out..."

Not a rat.  A medium sized possum.  He was not happy.  He hissed at me with an open mouth like possums like to do.  While I do want to catch and kill all the rats, I have no qualms about catching and killing all the possums, too.  Since this guy is medium-sized, I know there is a Momma Possum and a Daddy possum out there.  I've re-baited the trap with 'Ol Roy dog food and we'll see if we continue being successful in our trapping.

"Why can't you see, what you're doin' to me?"

I dealt with our captive swiftly and humanely and he found himself amended into our garden soil where his remains will provide nutrients that will grow possum flavored green beans this spring.  Catching the possum also answered a mystery.  One afternoon this week I walked out to the pasture and saw the following: 

If you look closely, you can see a bunch of feathers from a Rhode Island Red hen.  I didn't find a carcass, so he wasn't successful in killing the hen, but the next time the predator comes around, our hen might not be so fortunate.  Maybe the possum in the trap was the guilty party.  Me and the Rhode Island Red hopes so.

And Now For The Good News

Yesterday we recounted a sad story about the death of two of our hens by a bloodthirsty trespasser. That was really bad news for our flock.  Something had to be done.  I didn't want to lose another bird to whatever predator that took the lives of the two Aracauna sisters.  My initial guess was that this was either a raccoon or a possum. The fugitive must be brought to justice!

It is a joy for the just to do justice, But destruction will come to the workers of iniquity. Proverbs 21:15

I had a couple of cage traps stored in the rafters of the barn.  Benjamin and I pulled them down and tested them to ensure that they were in working condition.  Tricia had a tupperware container of canned salmon in the fridge that I conscripted for use as bait in our trap.  The salmon would stink and attract our predator.  If you look in the picture below, right outside the perimeter fence is a patch of woods that grows right next to the hen house.

I located a trail of sorts that ran parallel to the perimeter fence on the woods side of the fence and figured that this might be evidence of our predator.  I put the traps directly in the path and placed a paper bowl with a dollop of smelly salmon in it to attract the predator.  I hoped that Saturday night after we set the trap, the killer would go on his nocturnal hunt and would meet his end.

Sunday morning after the sun rose and we made our way to the barn, I looked around the hen house and saw no new feathers and saw no new chicken carcasses. Good.  I walked to the south side of the hen house and immediately saw that we had caught the murderer!  A big, fat, male possum.

You know I like my chicken fried...

This bad boy was fat!  He was unhappy with his confinement and hissed at me.  I hissed back.  No doubt that he was on his way to eat chicken on Saturday night, but those plans changed when he came across the smelly salmon.

After church services, Benjamin, Russ, and I walked back out to the trapped possum where a brief trial was held, the guilty perpetrator sentenced and then was summarily executed by Benjamin and his .22 rifle.  With two properly placed shots, the possum's days of killing chickens were brought to an end.

But that was not the end to the possum.  We don't waste a thing around here. Where one man might see a nasty dead possum, I see fertilizer.  We carried the old possum to the garden, dug a hole and trench composted him between the Sugar Snap Peas and the Russian Red Kale and right next to the carcasses of the two hens he killed the night before.

So that's the good news.  The killer was brought to justice and in so doing, brought fertility to our garden.

And A Possum in a Fig Tree

Tricia called me out from the kitchen the other night, saying, "Kyle, Big Boy is barking his head off at something in the fig tree."  It was late.  It was dark.  It seemed like an adventure, so I was out the door real quick.  Big Boy was indeed circling the fig tree.  As I walked up, something darted out and I immediately thought, "Skunk!"

Had it been a skunk, I would have been googling remedies to get the skunk smell out, because the critter ran right past me with Big Boy in hot pursuit.  The Big White Dog grabbed the varmint with his jaws and gave it a vigorous shake and then set it down.  It was then that I identified the critter as a possum.

Jaws of Death

Big Boy did some sort of celebratory pacing and then commenced to shaking the possum back and forth, back and forth and back and forth while clamping down with his teeth.  Cats have nine lives.  I don't think possums do.  This possum's ticket was punched.

Possums have a little trick they do called, "playing possum."  They pretend like they are dead until the predator leaves.  I watched him closely and pushed around on him with a stick.  He was not playing possum.

Dead as a doornail

I called Animal Rescue and they showed up, performed CPR, inserted an IV and the possum is healing up in a critical care unit.  Nope.  None of that happened at all.  I had Benjamin dig a hole in the garden between a couple of rows and we composted the dead possum.  He'll decompose and amend the soil with rich 'essence of possum' that will undoubtedly make the garden vegetables planted over him to grow with vigor.  Hopefully it won't impart possum flavor to those vegetables!

Another bonus is that this possum won't be able to kill any of my chickens.  We've certainly had losses to our hens in the past caused by possums.  Fortunately a dead, composted possum can't kill chickens.  The good guys won this battle this time - thanks to Big Boy.  Big Boy digs big craters in our yard.  He also has been known to enjoy eating a chicken or two himself.  He also likes to go out on patrols in our neighborhood and I've had to apologize to a neighbor who drove over to tell me that Big Boy had marked his territory by peeing on his nice chrome Harley-Davidson. Big Boy is also known as Bad Boy.  But I tip my hat to Big Boy for breaking his pattern and doing a good thing in killing the possum.  Keep up the good work, Big Boy.

Jethro Bodine's Favorite Meal

If you've been keeping up with the blog, we've lost a few hens and meat birds to a predator.  I think it is a raccoon, so I have 3 traps that I've been setting every night and other than catching the neighbor's cat, I haven't had much success.  If we were depending on my trapping prowess to provide our meals, we'd probably be mighty thin and perhaps be boiling dandelion roots for nutrition.

But things took a turn for the better last night and this fellow was waiting for me in the trap.  An opossum.  Could this be the guy killing my chickens?  What am I gonna do with him?  Unfortunately for him, he's not protected by the due process clause of our Constitution like we enjoy.  What are my options?  I remember as a kid, I'd watch the Beverly Hillbillies on TV and Jethro Bodine's favorite meal was Granny's possum stew.  Yum!  I wonder if Tricia could google up a recipe...


Possum in the trap! 

After I skinned him, Tricia boiled the old guy with some beans.  I'm only joking!!  This is actually some comfort food that we enjoy - 15 bean soup.  The meat is a homemade smoked sausage that our neighbor blessed us with - not possum sausage, but pork and deer. 

15 bean soup

Along with the 15 Bean Soup, Tricia has some Blue Stone ground Cornmeal.  She mixed that up and put it in the oven so that we could have some hot blue cornbread to eat with our meal.  Is there anything better than hot cornbread with a big pat of butter melting on top?  I don't think so.

Mixing up Blue Cornbread

I picked a nice bunch of fresh kale from the garden to go along with our meal.  This stuff is so good for you.  I also pulled some beets up to add some color and flavor to the plate.


Fresh Kale

Now although it is actually called 15 Bean Soup, we eat it over rice similar to what we do with Red Beans & Rice.  Scrumptious!  Look at those vittles!  Although there's no possum on that plate, I'll be Jethro would eat that plate and be standing at the pot for seconds.  Check out the blue cornbread...

A nice plate of stomach-pleasing vittles.

Back to ol' boy in the trap, I'll tell it like this.  I had a neighbor who always had the greenest, most healthy vegetables in his garden.  One day I asked him, "Mr. Bill, what do you do to make your vegetables so nice and healthy?"  I still haven't figured out if he was serious or not (but I think he was), when he said, "Kyle, here's my secret - at last count I have 62 stray cats buried in my garden."  Mr. Bill had a different twist on the old Indian trick of burying a fish with each corn seed they planted.

If the choice is between him and my chickens, it's an easy choice.  I'll leave it to you to figure out where my alleged chicken killing possum is.


RIP Chicken Killer