Sitting with a cup of coffee. (coffee lovers)

[Alaskan]

Love the photos... Memes...whatevery they are.

Next update on my soap opera of a life:


@ChickenCanoe

I used a havaheart trap.

Size 1025 which is for small squirrels.



So..... I was selling 6 pullets today... As we rounded them up, we actually smashed and not quite killed one of the pullets that we were about to sell.

Not kidding. it got under the ramp and we smashed it.

My son and I looked at the little still breathing and smashed body... Our jaws on the floor..... I mean really now...... How could I be looking at that?



Hack.

We had a different pullet to substitute for the smushed one...... So I was still able to fill the order and get some money...

And then, with money in my pocket I went to the store to buy cereal for the kids....

While there I ran into a lady that I have sold lots of poultry to.... She asked how
I was doing... I told that I was still a bit shell-shocked after predation by a great horned owl and then a weasel, all in the same week... And that I was really upset about loosing all of my Ameraucana bantam breeders.

Guess what?

Before I went down to Texas I traded her some ducklings for a turkey, and begged her to take two newly hatched chicks for free, so that the kids wouldn't have them to take care of while I was gone...

She said she still had them, that they were now keeping a lone duckling company, but once they were done tending to the duckling...she would be happy to give them back to me for free....... And she that "it was so interesting that they were such different colors from each other" so... She has a pair of my Ameraucanas!

I actually teared up.... There in the middle of the grocery store.... Dang! I am getting a boy back...for free!!! Even if he looks like poop...I can make that work!!!!!!!

 

[Alaskan]

I just chewed my last swallow of left over coffee from coffee hour yesterday.

Yum!

 

[chickisoup]

 

[WVduckchick]

x2!

 

[Alaskan]

X a gillion

 

[sourland]

Al, are the predators leaving you alone?

 

[Alaskan]

So far so good....


We got the one adult (a lactating female ) but haven't caught the babies yet..... We still have traps out.

Great horned owl hasn't shown back up, which is nice. But he is so big...much easier to keep him out.

The vampire slaughterers of doom in a tiny hotdog shape.... Those scare the snot out of me. Super tiny as well as super strong.... Hard as heck to keep out..... And slaughter all in just one night.

 

[duluthralphie]

So far so good....


We got the one adult (a lactating female

) but haven't caught the babies yet..... We still have traps out.

Great horned owl hasn't shown back up, which is nice. But he is so big...much easier to keep him out.

The vampire slaughterers of doom in a tiny hotdog shape.... Those scare the snot out of me. Super tiny as well as super strong.... Hard as heck to keep out..... And slaughter all in just one night.

They are my worst fear. next to this ungodly heat we have now.

 

[sourland]

So far so good....


We got the one adult (a lactating female

) but haven't caught the babies yet..... We still have traps out.

Great horned owl hasn't shown back up, which is nice. But he is so big...much easier to keep him out.

The vampire slaughterers of doom in a tiny hotdog shape.... Those scare the snot out of me. Super tiny as well as super strong.... Hard as heck to keep out..... And slaughter all in just one night.

Their bigger cousins can be even worse. Best part is that they have such an attitude that generally they are not difficult to trap.

 

[Alaskan]

I haven't beefed up the bantam coop/slaughter house 5.

I have decided to wait two weeks and keep the traps in place, hope that if there are more out there that they jump into the traps.

After the two week break we will then put up hardware cloth around my bantam coop.

How well do these vampire hotdogs climb? Killing me that my free bantam coop that has kept out a bear, owls, dogs etc. is now going to need hundreds of dollars in hardware cloth.

Can I just do the one wrap around? (Whatever a standard roll is.. 4 feet tall?) once all of the way around with about 1 foot under ground?? Do I really need to hardware cloth the top, and the sides all of the way up...pretty much a hardware cloth box??????? (Because I am putting the hardware cloth over the wood too, not just over the run fencing. I am worried that the vampire hotdogs of doom could squeeze in between the wood pieces.)