Today my boyfriend and I started working on the new aviary. We mainly ended up working on the existing aviary though...After I picked up my boyfriend we got lunch and drove to my grandmas. We sat there in my truck eating and pointing at different male cardinals flying around and perching in the surrounding trees and sometimes I would take a photo of them. Once we finished eating we gave my grandma her mail and we walked back to the pen to give the peafowl their treats. Today they had lots of lettuce and other nice green things. We were walking around throwing out food not paying much attention to a certain area of the pen until my boyfriend, Aaron, was standing near one of the roosts throwing out some food. He was facing away from the fencing and I was walking to him throwing out pieces of celery to the peafowl. I looked at the corner of the pen (this specific corner is one that I never pay much attention to. None of the peafowl really hang out there). I let out a gasp. Aaron said, "What? What is it!? What are you looking at?" I pointed to the corner of the pen and there lying on the fence was a big raccoon.
We have had a snare attached to that corner post for a while. My dad adjusted it just the other day. The snare is what caught the raccoon. I stared at the coon. I thought it was dead at first. It was not blinking, but Aaron pointed out that it was breathing. It made no noise and did not move. A huge gaping hole was in the netting.
Raccoons sometimes give me bad dreams. I have had a dream where all of my birds were killed by raccoons and I woke up and thought it had really happened then I realized it was just a dream. While I was happy that this raccoon was caught before it could catch one of my birds, I couldn't help feel very sorry for her. She looked so pitiful and I love animals. I knew we couldn't just let her go. She would be back and if we relocated her she would either find her way back or she would kill someone else's birds. I called my dad and after a while he showed up. The worst part of the whole thing was I don't know what kind of gun he was using, but it was not working so it wasn't a one shot kill like I thought it would be. I hated it a bunch and luckily we had a different gun that he finally got and it was all over after that. It was strange because I go coon hunting every now and then and I am fine with that, but seeing an animal trapped like that and it taking so many shots to kill it was just too much for me. My dad really did not want to have to do that and I know it upset him too, but we all knew that it had to be done.
It was a female coon, and my dad thinks she could even be the accomplice & mate to a male raccoon we caught not too long ago. I am definitely upping security and while I never liked the idea of snares, it sure did work so maybe one of those on each corner post couldn't hurt.
The peafowl didn't even seem to see the raccoon. I figured she got stuck last night and struggled all night and by morning she was no longer moving so the peafowl didn't notice. It was scary to see that they didn't even seem to notice her and if they did they were not scared! I am soo happy all of my peas are safe! They mean so much to me...
We have had a snare attached to that corner post for a while. My dad adjusted it just the other day. The snare is what caught the raccoon. I stared at the coon. I thought it was dead at first. It was not blinking, but Aaron pointed out that it was breathing. It made no noise and did not move. A huge gaping hole was in the netting.
Raccoons sometimes give me bad dreams. I have had a dream where all of my birds were killed by raccoons and I woke up and thought it had really happened then I realized it was just a dream. While I was happy that this raccoon was caught before it could catch one of my birds, I couldn't help feel very sorry for her. She looked so pitiful and I love animals. I knew we couldn't just let her go. She would be back and if we relocated her she would either find her way back or she would kill someone else's birds. I called my dad and after a while he showed up. The worst part of the whole thing was I don't know what kind of gun he was using, but it was not working so it wasn't a one shot kill like I thought it would be. I hated it a bunch and luckily we had a different gun that he finally got and it was all over after that. It was strange because I go coon hunting every now and then and I am fine with that, but seeing an animal trapped like that and it taking so many shots to kill it was just too much for me. My dad really did not want to have to do that and I know it upset him too, but we all knew that it had to be done.
The peafowl didn't even seem to see the raccoon. I figured she got stuck last night and struggled all night and by morning she was no longer moving so the peafowl didn't notice. It was scary to see that they didn't even seem to notice her and if they did they were not scared! I am soo happy all of my peas are safe! They mean so much to me...
