Posts Tagged ‘euthanizing pests’
Unpleasant Surprise
In all the years we have been keeping horses on our property, I’ve never had to deal with the situation I found yesterday morning under the overhang. There was no sign of anything out of order when I opened the door from inside the barn. While the horses calmly waited, I started on the north end with my usual housekeeping tasks.
Coming around to the south end, I moved past Swings and got startled by the sight of a furry animal curled up as if napping against the wall beneath a hay bag. It was difficult to see the head but the tail was a dead giveaway for a raccoon. I could clearly see the movement of breaths but no other evidence of its condition.
The thought crossed my mind that a startled horse could have kicked out at an intruder and led to one knocked-out raccoon. The varmint was also laying next to a mineral block meant for the horses. I wondered if the bandit had simply gorged until overfilled and conked out right there. That was a lot less likely.
I decided to just let it “sleep” while I carried on with my business. At one point, I saw that Swings went over and sniffed at it with what looked to be empathy, so it wasn’t like the horses didn’t realize it was there.
After setting out the feed pans for the horses, I dashed back to the house for preparations to euthanize the critter. When I returned, I moved the horses to the other side and closed the gates so I could take care of things with them out of the way.
There was nothing in my life instruction manual about dealing with this kind of thing. It wasn’t what I signed on for when I agreed to feed and clean up after the horses. But you do what you gotta do.
The poor critter was unceremoniously picked up by the tail and dropped into an empty feed bag that I put into another empty feed bag for disposal in the trash. Not knowing if other health concerns contributed to the sorry state I found it in initially, I chose to keep the remains out of reach of any scavengers.
I did decide to dispose of that mineral block, as well. The horses had never really shown much interest in it and if it was starting to attract other animals, it was doing more harm than good.
Every day is an adventure. I’m grateful the horses took it all in stride and my hassle of having to deal with the unpleasant surprise was hardly a blip in the morning routine.
It would be just fine with me if we could have another ten years or more without needing to repeat this routine again.
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Endless Critters
Get a gun, they said. You should have a gun. But I like not having a gun. We made it for nine years on our rural property without owning a gun. Then the great raccoon boom of 2021 happened. We enlisted the services of a pest control company that happily started collecting the masked bandits in cages for us.
Sometimes, two at a time in a single cage.
Each time I would check our trail camera, there were always more roaming around after the captured ones were trapped. When the count reached ten and Cyndie told me we were paying a hefty fee for each animal removed, my aversion to spending money like there was a leak in our financial pipes put a dent in my resistance to owning a tool that can kill.
Researching humane ways to euthanize raccoons brings repeated pleas about NOT drowning them. Number one choice is a CO2 chamber. I’m not likely to build such a contraption. There is also the injection method that a veterinarian can provide, but that doesn’t solve the problem of dollars flying out of our pockets.
Shooting them is an accepted method that would involve a more controlled initial expense.
My dream of shooing away the raccoons with miscellaneous aversion tactics was far inferior to the draw of our chicken coop and all the messes of spilled chicken feed and captive birds within.
If there hadn’t been such a prolific baby boom of raccoons this year, we might have gotten along like we always did before. Meanwhile, a few nights ago the packs of coyotes were making a heck of a lot of howling racket in our woods. Our plan to open the courtyards of the coop up to allow the first days of free-ranging next week is driving a new perspective about weapon ownership.
Maybe I need to do a better job of befriending the local guys who like to hunt coyotes. I suppose if I knew how to shoot a gun it would give me some cred.
I’ve got another day to ponder the situation. Today is the 4th-of-July game day for the association of families at our Wildwood lake place. There are water balloons to be filled, watermelon to cut, Bats vs. Mice T-Shirts to distribute, water sports to be played, sunscreen to be applied, a feast of foods to be prepared, and endless frivolity and laughter to unleash.
Dealing with critters will have to wait another day.
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Relative Something 