ancona
Praying Mantis
Well, we finally got that copperhead that's been terrorizing and killing our chickens. A copperhead that was around three and a half feet long was found curled up in the shop near some equipment so we cornered it with a flat shovel, schwacked the fucker with the head of the shovel and crushed its head just to be sure. The son of a bitch killed two of my birds in the last three weeks and I believe sither this snake, or one of his siblings to be responsible for the killing of one of the turkeys as well.
We have a lot of cottonmouths, copperheads and pygmy rattlers at the west side of the property because there is a water source [drainage ditch] and thus ditch rats, moles, voles and other small critters to eat. This is the fifth poisonous snake we've killed this year. We leave the non-poisonous ones alone for obvious reasons. In fact, as long as they mind their P's and Q's, we leave the poisonous ones alone as well, but when they start killing our birds and eating eggs, that all changes. We had one particularly greedy racoon that made it in to the henhouse, tore up the nests and ate several eggs. We strengthened the wire but he got in again. It was pretty aggravating but we sat out one evening for five hours waiting on the 'coon to come back, and when he did, we shot him with a 30-30. I didn't want to kill it, but there is only so much chaos the birds will take before they start to lose feathers and quit laying eggs.
Oh well, at least the Sherriff didn't come around asking who's out here shooting the place up at ten o'clock at night like they did the last time. We're only about four hundred yards away from the State Troopers central county headquarters so if we shoot anything, we can usually count on getting paid a visit. Normally, I am the one doing the shooting, and most of these guys either shoot at our range or know me from other venues, so it is just a sort of mandatory "must respond" sort of thing. I've only ever been scolded once, adn that was for using a shotgun in lieu of a rifle.
We have a lot of cottonmouths, copperheads and pygmy rattlers at the west side of the property because there is a water source [drainage ditch] and thus ditch rats, moles, voles and other small critters to eat. This is the fifth poisonous snake we've killed this year. We leave the non-poisonous ones alone for obvious reasons. In fact, as long as they mind their P's and Q's, we leave the poisonous ones alone as well, but when they start killing our birds and eating eggs, that all changes. We had one particularly greedy racoon that made it in to the henhouse, tore up the nests and ate several eggs. We strengthened the wire but he got in again. It was pretty aggravating but we sat out one evening for five hours waiting on the 'coon to come back, and when he did, we shot him with a 30-30. I didn't want to kill it, but there is only so much chaos the birds will take before they start to lose feathers and quit laying eggs.
Oh well, at least the Sherriff didn't come around asking who's out here shooting the place up at ten o'clock at night like they did the last time. We're only about four hundred yards away from the State Troopers central county headquarters so if we shoot anything, we can usually count on getting paid a visit. Normally, I am the one doing the shooting, and most of these guys either shoot at our range or know me from other venues, so it is just a sort of mandatory "must respond" sort of thing. I've only ever been scolded once, adn that was for using a shotgun in lieu of a rifle.