Young Bear

[patvetzal]

The shotgun with birdshot may well make the bear depart, but will either result in a wounded bear for a neighbour to deal with or a bear that takes a long time to die from its wounds.
IF I have to shoot it, I want it to die quickly.

If you are shopping for fencers, we have two kinds around here. The older "bing,,, bing,,, bing" battery models, which put out a shock every few seconds (as the points on the balance wheel break) and the newer ones that put out a continuous charge. Many times the intermittent models are a lot cheaper, but we find that the time between jolts can just long enough for a bear to make it thru due to his long coat, often ripping down the wire on the way....

 

[Equus5O]

Quote:
I beg to differ. No other available food source (chicken feed) was touched. The door was torn off of the coop, from the hinge side. 4 chickens were eaten, and the rest slaughtered.

 

[Two Creeks Farm]

Quote:
I beg to differ. No other available food source (chicken feed) was touched. The door was torn off of the coop, from the hinge side. 4 chickens were eaten, and the rest slaughtered.

My reply was to the OP and he did not state any chickens were killed...and was based on the info he provided.....your situation is different as stated. Bears are oppertunist, and a free and easy meal no matter what it is will always be a target.

I have also watched people "bait" in a local bear with just a few morsels...only to have 5 or 6 there in a few hours, sometimes you get alot more then you bargained for. If they want in something, they will find a way.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

It depends on how far away you are from the bear as well....we've used bird shot on neighbors' cows that were ruining our hay stack...they came through our fence & did damage to the fence and to our stack (they ate around the bottom and probably ruined 1/2 ton of hay).

I called the neighbor twice and told him to come & get his cows. It sounded like I woke him up at 10am on a Monday morning when I called.

I ran them out of our place every day and they'd keep coming back (this was fall and they should have been picked up off the range about a month earlier)...they were very aggressive, too. I had one ram the 4-wheeler I was on and another got Cash (our dog) down on the ground and started smashing him with her head.

The neighbor wouldn't come and get them....so one morning, DH grabbed the shotgun and unloaded about 4 rounds on them or at least in their direction--this was from several hundred yards away. They stopped in their tracks and high-tailed it out of there....I am not sure they got hit....it could have been the noise....neighbor never said anything and those cows never did come back.