Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[hallerlake]

My advice, a good dose of lead is the best cure for coyotes.

The Seattle Police department might have something to say about that.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

My advice, a good dose of lead is the best cure for coyotes.

Fine when you're shooting with a known background and lots of unoccupied ground, not so great in an urban neighborhood like hallerlake's (or when your farm is surrounded by suburbs and a high-volume road, like mine).

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Hello fellow Washingtonians!

New people to the thread or BYC

Welcome to the thread silly!

We need a welcome to the thread happy chicken!!

I can't swear here, can I? Because I feel like swearing. I lost another one of the Hamburgs: Maggie was dead of a broken neck, I think, crashed down at the bottom of the door to the coop when I went out this morning: no missing feathers, even, her feet in fight position and her head down and loose. I guess I could just put up a string of big red asterisks, that would express my current state of mind, so: [COLOR=FF0000]*** ****** ***********!!!!!!!!!!!![/COLOR] Does that help? Well, no, actually, not so much. Not even after adding the exclamation points.

That sucks eggs! Sorry you lost Maggie

Yup, that's about it. I went around to check if anything had dug under the fence and gotten into the pen, but all I found was that the cattle had stuck their tongues in as far as they could to get the green grass between the pasture fence and the yard fence, which might have startled her. There's a couple of blood streaks down the inside of the door, and with that and the position I found her in, and the fact she weighed more than the Am rooster who died (and he was a big example of a much bigger breed, while she was the smallest of the Hamburg hens) tends to make me think she stupided herself to death. Still need to get the other two out of that pen and the two other hens in with them. Problem is that I need help to get that accomplished and it's going to take more than one other person to get it done. And, of course, the wedding's coming up in eleven days, and the Thurston County Fair the week after that (which takes The Nephew out of the calculation).

I'd come out and give you a hand but I'm tied up at our place redoing the siding and prepping for paint.

Thanks, Rob, I know how that goes *and have to fake-up something like new siding on the weather side of the house before winter myself). I keep kicking myself that it's not done, but there's weather, and cattle, and last summer there were constant complications of appliances and infrastructure breaking, and my hired hand also breaking, and what happens is what happens.

 

[ElleLovesDucks]

Hi there! New to the backyard chickens. I am awaiting arrival of my two ducks and then in spring I'll be getting chickens.

 

[Gut Pile]

My advice, a good dose of lead is the best cure for coyotes.

The Seattle Police department might have something to say about that.

Yah, they probably would. Guess I just take it for granted that I live in rural eastern WA.

 

[cieraphoto]

Hello everyone!

I have a few birds to sell. I just have too many right now. I have a Chocolate Orpington Pullet she is about 4 months old. I hatched her. She is from Marc Sacre lines.

I also have a Black Cochin Large Fowl cockerel. He is hatchery stock but absolutely gorgeous and sweet.

They will be gone tomorrow if someone doesn't purchase them. PM me for price and pictures. Thanks!

 

[mikeyb]

Quote: Excellent advice SF. Hmmm, small crossbow comes to mind, but that has hidden dangers also.
Dead coyote = GOOD coyote

 

[Stumpfarmer]

My advice, a good dose of lead is the best cure for coyotes.

Fine when you're shooting with a known background and lots of unoccupied ground, not so great in an urban neighborhood like hallerlake's (or when your farm is surrounded by suburbs and a high-volume road, like mine).

Excellent advice SF. Hmmm, small crossbow comes to mind, but that has hidden dangers also.
Dead coyote = GOOD coyote

Yeh, my opinion exactly, but it'll only be a little while before a new coyote comes along. And the problem isn't muzzle noise, it's where the shots go when they miss. I've already found crossbow bolts shot from the subdivision below my house stuck in the ground at a low angle just outside my back door.

I had pups singing up on the hill last night, yip-yip-yipping away for twenty minutes or so, just before I went to bed. Not as noisy as two years ago, when the big female who'd been fed as a pup* had six (and got hit on the road just before they were weaned; they grew up small and skinny but one of them had enough knowledge of the territory that they held the den up there, which is prime hardened and camoflaged (and not on my side of the fence) look-out territory, part of an unintentional game corridor that's uninterrupted as far inland as Mount Rainier National Park and al the way to the Sound at several points and the Ocean south of Westport.

Turns out there are elk within two miles of me, which is unusual- there were three young bucks on the St. Martins University and Abbey hinterlands a few years ago but they went away, possibly via asphalt. These are cows with calves and at least one buck, on City of Olympia Watershed and the huge old dairy farm owned by my BIL's cousin, and could range down into the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge for summer grazing pretty easily if the ones you see grazing the marshes at John's River are any indication. I'd laugh when they came down and ate all the hand-planted trees, little plastic sleeves and all: there's an active attempt to "reforest" the upper delta, which would be fine except that it wasn't forested in 1856 when the General Land Office survery was made nor in 1832 when Douglas did the first descriptions (the people who go by what theoretical climax vegetation would be without regard to what happens when the river floods too often for cedar and hemlock to become established, without regard to actual on-site historic observations, and without regard for archaelogical evidence make me laugh anyway, although it is a sad laugh).

There's a touching belief that certain species are "averse to human contact" although in fairness nobody ever said that about coyotes. The way it works is that when wildlife is hungry all it takes is one day in the hayfield, or the protected greenbelt, or the heavily landscaped five acre lot development without being shot or run off by big dogs and they stop being averse. And big hungry herbivores are a lot more dangerous to people than intelligent opportunists like coyotes and raccoons. And running an "any elk" season when there's not a mile without a house, a freeway, or a pasture full of cattle (our beef and the relative's replacement heifers and dairy steers) sounds unwise to me.



* Stupid Human Tricks number 1: feeding the wild animals. There were three weanling pups hanging out in the stormwater overflow pond a quarter mile from me, enjoying the sun in the full view of the road, as you do when you're just learning to hunt and still nursing and have all the time in the world. Some idiot who thought they were rescuing orphans fed them all the high-protein dog food they could eat, and we ended up, for a while, with the biggest coyotes you could imagine, totally habituated to humans. Those were the ones who wiped out every outside cat in the neighborhood. If it wasn't for automobiles (or probably semis going back to the box plant), they'd still be around.

 

[Gut Pile]

Klickitat County Fair and Rodeo coming up August 22-25, 2013 in Goldendale, WA. Local hogs, sheep, steers, and of course CHICKENS on display. Come check it out! For more info, http://klickitatcountyfair.com/

 

[Manningjw]

* Stupid Human Tricks number 1: feeding the wild animals. There were three weanling pups hanging out in the stormwater overflow pond a quarter mile from me, enjoying the sun in the full view of the road, as you do when you're just learning to hunt and still nursing and have all the time in the world. Some idiot who thought they were rescuing orphans fed them all the high-protein dog food they could eat, and we ended up, for a while, with the biggest coyotes you could imagine, totally habituated to humans. Those were the ones who wiped out every outside cat in the neighborhood. If it wasn't for automobiles (or probably semis going back to the box plant), they'd still be around.

Well at least the coyotes did you a favor by eliminating the neighborhood cats before being taken out by traffic! That is, unless you like cats. My dog almost lost his eye to a cat that came into our yard so I am not a big fan.