Thought it might lighten things up to hear some of our funniest experiences dealing with predators and pests. I'll start. A few years ago, my sister who was staying here and I had an annoying problem with a neighbor's big thick coated beautiful Himalayan cat. Now this cat wasn't preying on chickens or anything, but it started hanging out over here, and keeping my old 16 yr old cat and my sister's old 18 yr old cat intimidated when they were outside (didn't have such a predator problem killing cats here back then), kept them run off their food and water on the porch, bullied the two old girls until they either hid or stayed inside most the time. In addition, it was one of these overly freindly pushy annoying demanding cats that persists in wrapping itself around your legs everytime you walk outside, squalling for food, tripping you, and trying to dash into the house every time a door opens. My sister, a cancer patient, was very frail by then, and all she needed was a stupid cat tripping her , making her fall and break a bone or something. I had told the neighbor the problem and asked them to please keep the cat home, to no avail, to the usual, oh he's so sweet, he'd not hurt anything! And the cat just kept coming. We'd tried water pistols filled with stinky, throwing things at him, swatting him with newpapers, all we were doing was teaching him to hide and jump out when he caught us off guard, with no 'weapon' in hand. One night we came in very late after all day in Houston for my sister's dr appointments and chemo treatments, and I had a pile of groceries to carry in out of the car to boot, and here's that darned cat, wrapping itself around my legs and squaling that it was hungry and trying to dash in the door everytime i opened it. Noticing one of my vari-kennels over by the shed, I grabbed that cat up, went over and threw it in and locked the door. It squaled like it was being killed. I went on and finished up and we went to bed, I'd deal with the cat in the morning, tell the owner I'd had it with this nonsense. I didn't let it out that night because our cats were hungry,(it had eatern all their food, of course) and we had to feed them. Next morning, i walk out to that crate, and all i could say over and over was OMG! OMG! My sister came running, asking whats wrong, but stopped short and just stared, speechless. Seems I had forgotten about that crate, I had used it several weeks before to haul a dog for someone else, and the dog had peed and pooped in it big time! I had tossed it over there to wash it later, forgot about it. meantime there had been a couple rains and it had rained into it. I'm going to tell you, 20+ years as a pet groomer, including cats, and I'd sure not want to have seen that thing come through my shop door! I'd have probably refused it! We burst out laughing so hard we couldn't even talk. I opened the crate door and the cat was off like a shot, headed home! My sister dryly observed, "I bet it doesn't come back THIS time!" And she was right! I would see it wandering the owners yard and other yards, but it never again to best of my knowledge set paw on my place again!
Mine is not nearly that funny, but my girls had been freeranging all day, they tucked themselves in their coop and I went to shut them in, there was a skunk about 5 feet from my feet. I might have done the space walk to get back out of the run. Then I had to wait for the stupid thing to wander back out of the run, after it ate almost all of the chicken food. My sister got a couple of pictures of it. Either skunks are really stupid or we have more than one, They are NOT happy when they hit the electric fence I am a live and let live, unless it really threatens my girls, and they remain oder free.
lol! I always wondered if I got one of those live traps and went out there to find a skunk in it, what the heck are you supposed to DO with it??!!!
One of the guys on my squad had gotten a 911 call about a skunk chasing kids on a school bus, So he goes over there and he can't find the skunk or anything, I am a few miles away near a school on a traffic stop with two Troopers dealing with a guy on a warrant when this black ford truck pulls up and this lady takes a cage out of the back and puts it on the field. Well in this cage is a skunk, The two troopers leave with there arrest and here I am along with my co worker who showed up with a skunk a lady who has blood and slaiva from said skunk all over her along with her dead cat that the skunk killed. So Know a forest ranger drives by and I get him to stop, the skunk is hissing and acting crazy and we have to get the head to the vet since this lady may now have rabies, SO I tell the school to bring all the kids in that are out for recces, and we come up with a plan to get him out well my co worker was going to be the shooter well the skunk come running out and chases him and he runs then the thing comes after me 4 shots later from me and it is in the back of the rangers truck and we go to teh vet, The vet comes out cops the head off and sends it off.
I'm not sure if y'all will find this funny, but I thought it was hilarious. I used to have 2 Black Spanish Turkey hens, one of which was VERY attached to me. She would come when I whistled, jump up in my lap and cuddle, she would even strut her stuff for me. Anyway, I was out in the yard with my flock watching them free range because we'd had a terrible time with hawks that year. All of a sudden this hawk swoops down from nowhere and grabbed one of my hens, who immediately started flapping and screaming. Every single bird made a beeline for the coop leaving their sister behind to fend for herself. Everyone except my turkey stalker. I'm not really sure what set her off, maybe all of my hollering and flailing. That hawk never saw that turkey drop kick coming. And I'll tell you, she must've put everything she had into it, because she literally knocked it for a loop. Ever watched a cartoon where two of the characters get in a fight and all you see if a ball of fury and a punch here and there? That's what this fight looked like, except there were wings and turkey feet every now and then. I guess the hawk had decided it had enough, and it flew to a rather low branch in a nearby tree. Well, the turkey hadn't had enough, and up into the tree she went after the darned thing where more fighting ensued. She whipped the SNOT outta that hawk. I still have some hawk feathers from that fight. And I miss that turk every single day- R.I.P Jive Turkey!!!! P.s- she survived the hawk fight, and walked around like she was pretty darned proud of herself for a while. I lost her to a prolapse, poor baby
Several years ago I was out walking in the woods when I flushed a GHO out of a cedar tree. As I watched him fly away I heard a comotion to my left. As I turned I saw two redtails attacking the female GHO who was sitting on a nest. The two redtails and the GHO locked in battle fell from well up in an oak tree all the way to the forest floor. As I approached all flew away. I figure that the redtails were scoping out the nest site but were afraid to attack while the male owl was around. Once I flushed him they decided to give it a try.
Bet that hawk was like my neighbor's Himalayan cat....decided that was one place it didn't want nothing more to do with!
We have a resident pair of Sharp shinned Hawks, they are too small(not even as big as a homing pigeon) to be a threat to most birds I keep and anything small enough to be endangered by them is penned up. Well 2 summers ago I had a dozen or so black standard cochin chicks roaming the yard, about 2-3 months old so not all that little anymore(mostly fluff). I am sitting on a lawn chair watching the cochins and what do you know a juvi sharp shinned had eyes bigger then its stomach(about twice the size of his whole body really) and dove at one of the chicks. Funny part was it grossly underestimated the fluffy factor of these cochins, because the chick ran away screaming bloody murder and a rather confused hawk-ling sat on the lawn with talons full of feathers... Seriously, this bird sat on its butt- feet stretched out in front of him- looking from one foot to the next not knowing where the chicken went.. took him a good minute to wrap its head around what happened. I actually got up(after I was done laughing) and was ready to check if the little sucker was injured, that was too much for him and he left. The cochin was fine, couldn't even tell where the feathers were missing from and not a scratch anywhere. I seen him only chase starlings etc from then on, he never bothered a chicken ever again. Another funny predator moment I had was when I thought my cat was scratching at the door to come in at 1 am and I turned on the porch light and opened the door and there was the BIGGEST SKUNK I have ever seen not even a foot from me...... I didn't think I could slam a door shut that flippin fast, must of been some sort of record! Took about 5 mins for me to build up the courage to open the door again(with rifle in hand) to see if I can take that thing down. Searched around the buildings/barns for a few minutes and found it, followed it at a 10 ft distance with it not caring at all(tail down and foraging as if I wasn't there) and when it went into a tight corner in a storage shed and turned around to come back out(butt against the wall) I held the rifle right to its forhead and done...the shed still stinks in that corner, and that was at least 4 yrs ago but since it couldn't turn around I remained stink-free
Several years ago I was cleaning the cellar and had the cellar door to the outside opened. As I was sweeping the steps at the top a pigeon came flying at the house with a Coopers in hot pursuit. Pigeon hit he house, hawk hit the house and I took a swing at the hawk with the broom - purely instinctive, please don't flame me. The hawk flew away, but the pigeon was nowhere in sight? Next day as I was in the cellar I heard a rustling. There the pigeon was on one of my storage shelves. From that time on he was known as the cellar pigeon. Another time two of my grand daughters and I were standing out by my loft watching my rollers perform. A pigeon with a Coopers in hot pursuit came in a beeline for the loft. Pigeon flew beneath the aviaries and under the loft. The Coopers crashed into the aviaries, sat there for a bit, shook herself and then flew off. My grand daughters were clapping and yelling, "Do it again, Pa." I think not.
