about the need to eliminate feral cats and wild dogs?????
On so many posts where people have lost chickens to these vermin(yes,if a once domestic animal is running wild and killing livestock or pets it is VERMIN!)there seems to be so many posters that want to "rehab" the offender or espouse a dozen reasons why it is not the offenders fault. I'm sorry folks but that is not reality! If a human came onto your property and asaulted or killed a member of your family would you call for their "rehabilitation"? Even though there is a difference between livestock/pets and your family it IS the same thing,only varying in degrees.
Come on out to the country,where people that get tired of their pets and bring them to drop where "there's plenty of room and some barns and that farmer will surely take them in" and live for a while. It will not take long to see the truth. It may not be the animals fault but it does not lessen the destruction,disease and havoc they create.
Right here within one half square mile of me there have been two instances of people moving out and leaving herds of cats behind. And I am talking HERDS. Try 60+ cats three years ago at one place and last year another place they left 25-30 cats that have turned into God only knows how many! The rabbit and quail populations have been decimated,I constantly have cats coming on our place leaving their mess in the yard and barn and trying to get into the coop. We have our own dogs and cat and there is constant watch for sickness with our pets.
The dog situation is not much better. Every few years there are packs of dogs running the area and killing calves,running down deer and destroying well made chicken coops. About every five years or so it gets so bad a bounty is put on the dog packs.
Before someone calls me heartless, I'll firmly state that I am an animal lover and have many time gotten into some pretty serious confrontations where someone was being cruel to an animal. Cruelty is a totally different discussion for another thread.
All I'm asking is that some of you take a step back and try to see things from our side of the fence. There is no such thing as a "Fort Knox" chicken coop or pasture. It gets tiresome being woke up at night by mating/fighting cats under your bedroom window. Every calf a dog pack kills may be a missed loan payment on a farm. Every stray cat has the potential to spread disease to your pets and the local wildlife population. The wild dog pack may someday attack one of your kids while they are playing in the yard.
So when one of us tells a poster that is losing their chickens to make sure their coop is as solid as possible and then Shoot,Shovel and Shut-up. Try to understand where we are coming from. It's not that we are cruel,cold-hearted bastards, we just have to deal daily with a different reality than some of you do.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Larry
On so many posts where people have lost chickens to these vermin(yes,if a once domestic animal is running wild and killing livestock or pets it is VERMIN!)there seems to be so many posters that want to "rehab" the offender or espouse a dozen reasons why it is not the offenders fault. I'm sorry folks but that is not reality! If a human came onto your property and asaulted or killed a member of your family would you call for their "rehabilitation"? Even though there is a difference between livestock/pets and your family it IS the same thing,only varying in degrees.
Come on out to the country,where people that get tired of their pets and bring them to drop where "there's plenty of room and some barns and that farmer will surely take them in" and live for a while. It will not take long to see the truth. It may not be the animals fault but it does not lessen the destruction,disease and havoc they create.
Right here within one half square mile of me there have been two instances of people moving out and leaving herds of cats behind. And I am talking HERDS. Try 60+ cats three years ago at one place and last year another place they left 25-30 cats that have turned into God only knows how many! The rabbit and quail populations have been decimated,I constantly have cats coming on our place leaving their mess in the yard and barn and trying to get into the coop. We have our own dogs and cat and there is constant watch for sickness with our pets.
The dog situation is not much better. Every few years there are packs of dogs running the area and killing calves,running down deer and destroying well made chicken coops. About every five years or so it gets so bad a bounty is put on the dog packs.
Before someone calls me heartless, I'll firmly state that I am an animal lover and have many time gotten into some pretty serious confrontations where someone was being cruel to an animal. Cruelty is a totally different discussion for another thread.
All I'm asking is that some of you take a step back and try to see things from our side of the fence. There is no such thing as a "Fort Knox" chicken coop or pasture. It gets tiresome being woke up at night by mating/fighting cats under your bedroom window. Every calf a dog pack kills may be a missed loan payment on a farm. Every stray cat has the potential to spread disease to your pets and the local wildlife population. The wild dog pack may someday attack one of your kids while they are playing in the yard.
So when one of us tells a poster that is losing their chickens to make sure their coop is as solid as possible and then Shoot,Shovel and Shut-up. Try to understand where we are coming from. It's not that we are cruel,cold-hearted bastards, we just have to deal daily with a different reality than some of you do.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Larry
