Pepe Le Pew meets the Havaheart
If you grew up on Warner Brothers cartoons, then Pepe Le Pew introduced you to the Hollywood anthropomorphic skunk. Who couldn’t help but like the love sick skunk who invariable falls in love with a black cat who was accidentally adorned with a stripe. (Now haven’t we all been there?)
As a defense against predators, I have a raccoon sized Havaheart live trap set near the pheasant fly pen. I’ve caught a feral cat, 4 raccoons, and a opossum and the Havaheart makes removal and disposal of the critters easy.
That is, until you catch a skunk. This morning I found a very large striped skunk in the cage. Skunk, like other fur bearing animals, are protected by game laws, but homeowners are allowed to protect their property. The challenge, with a skunk in a large cage, is how to move it without it spraying. The Havaheart web site suggests catching skunks in smaller cages (sure, makes sense to me, now tell the skunk to stay out of the bigger cage.) Their site goes on to offer this advice:
How to trap a skunk
Very carefully! Skunks spray when they are frightened.
To move a skunk in a trap, quietly drop a sheet over the trap, pick it up gently without shaking or jerking.In order to spray, skunks have to raise their tails, haunch up and aim. If the trap is low, and the skunk is unable to to raise their tail or turn their back to you, they most likely won’t spray.
I dont know about you, but I’m not sure “they most likley” qualifies as words of confidence.
Pheasants (Take Two People)
I know many people anxiously awaited the email this week. No, not the one about Obama’s running mate, the other email The one about the pheasants.
One of the new projects this year was to raise and release pheasants into the habitat on the ranch. The first pheasants arrived the week of June 12, and were well on their way to a release date sometime in October. When they were put out into the fly pen — a 25 x 45 foot enclosed netted pen with top and side netting — 32 of the original 52 were still alive. Over the next few days, a predator snuck into the confines and ended up killing most of the birds. Although the hatchery suspects a mink, its just as likley it was a raccoon or a few raccoons.
With any luck, they will be safe under the watchful eyes of Steve, the watch rabbit.
CSI: Grand River
Raising pheasants is a challenge.
I began this year’s group on the 14th of June with 52 pheasants from McFarlane. Adjusting the heat in my brooder box proved to be more challenging that I expected and over the first two weeks, I lost about 16 chicks. Which is a much higher mortality rate than expected or typical. 3 of those chicks got stuck, but the others appears to be overheated. A bigger concern is having the chicks too cool, but in the cases of the chicks, I think their heat lamp was too close.
The real excitement began last Thursday when we released the pheasants into the 25 foot by 45 foot fly pen. This is a netted pen, 6 feet or so high on the perimeter with support poles in the center like a circus tent
It is surrounded at the bottom with 1 inch chicken wire and the wire is flared out at the bottom to slow down predators from crawling in. The birds, when released, immediately flew to the far side — they’ve never flown before. Within about two minutes, one bird fond a small gap at a corner post and freed himself. First he walked, then he ran, then he flew into the sunset.
The next day, either another bid escaped, or the first bird returned. My son and daughter, age 11, and I caught it and put it back in the pen.
Saturday, it became interesting….
I woke to find four birds on the outside and several dead on the inside. I captured 3 of the 4 and then I discovered 2 more outside. I captured 1 of the 2. The dead inside were near the side fencing and many had head trauma.
Hmmmmm.
So this time, I put another 2 feet of 1/2 hardware cloth around the inside perimeter, and found some possible escape locations and closed them up.
Sunday was un eventful…Monday morning it was time to call in the good loking lady cops and the one liner delivering CSI team.
Every bird, with the exception of one, was dead. The carcasses were along the perimeter of the fence (inside) most with significant injuries to their heads.
Experienced pheasant raisers by know probably now the answer, but it took a call to the hatchery to learn the news. A predator is digging under the fencing, and probably it’s a mink.
After thinking about this for a few days, it also seems that maybe it is racoons, who kill in a simialr manner. They may have been going over the chicken wire and under the netting.
