Freakin' Raccoon

"Well that was exciting," my son says to me.
"You have no idea," I reply.

Raccoon

It's a cold Friday here today - we're having one of those peculiar North Carolina winters where it's getting well below freezing here in central NC. Right now it's around 3 in the afternoon, and it's only about 24°F degrees out there.

Today around 2:30 Cocoa was barking. And barking. That's unusual. She usually would rather be in here with me. Then the chickens started clucking loud. I went outside to take a look.

Inside the fence, right behind the chicken coop, Cocoa had a raccoon treed about 20-25 feet up in a pine tree. Oh crap.

Niko, 100 pounds of aging Newfoundland mutt, had come outside with me, and immediately joined up barking with Cocoa, focused on her target.

I was torn. I wanted it to leave, but if it did, I knew it would be back. I was afraid of the imminent fight between the raccoon and my dogs. "Please die quickly," I pleaded to it. A raccoon can eat chickens. I've heard it will start eating them before they're dead. It can also eat cats.

I realized I was unarmed, and ran around the chicken coop. I wanted a solid 2 x 4 in my hands.

By the time I had a board in my hands, the raccoon had fallen out of the tree and Cocoa had it by the neck and Niko by the back end, both of them furiously flipping figure eights with their heads. In a few more seconds it was dead.

What you're not reading here is the surging feelings of panic, empathy, fear, the shouting, and when I fell down and hit my mouth.

The next twenty minutes were spent trying to get the thing away from Cocoa without touching it, and flip it over the fence. I didn't want them to tear into it.  Every time I would get it away from her and lift it on the board, she'd leap up and grab it back down. We tracked all the way across the back yard like this. I finally got it near the far side of the fence, and having to grab it by the foot to get the carcass over the fence.

Grateful for social media, I realized Animal Control needed to be called. They came and removed the carcass. The dogs are current on their shots.

The next day, Animal Control decided it was indeed necessary for the dogs to get boosters for their rabies shots, but they didn't think the raccoon needed to be tested. Monday I toted 2 dogs and 2 cats in to the vet.

The Aftermath

The raccoon tested positive for rabies.

After talking to the nurse at the Health Department (part of the animal handling procedure) we came to the conclusion that I did have a slim chance of being at risk after this encounter. Her main points of concern were that a) I touched the animal, and b) I checked my dogs immediately for wounds after the event, putting me at risk for contact with rabid saliva.

So I had to get the shots series as well. How wonderful.

My youngest son kept me company while I waited for 4 hours in the Emergency Room Friday night. I got a shot in my arm, and 5 in my rump for a total of 14cc's of liquid in all. The shots left a horrid taste in my mouth, made me feel kinda flu-achy, and the following day my bowels cleared out. Needless to say I also felt like crud, and was pretty crabby. The following night I couldn't sleep well. My body was very twitchy and restless, to the point of waking me up, and I could not make my body stay relaxed.

I went back the following Monday for the next shot - only one in the opposite arm this time! Followed by more achiness, feeling crabby, and bowel-clearing, but not nearly as much twitchiness. And still that awful taste in my mouth.

I have 2 more to go.

Moral of the Story

Keep your dogs up to date on their shots. Don't touch the carcass without gloves. And don't check your animals for wounds afterwards without wearing gloves. 

The Bear

Holy crap.
Right before noon yesterday I was looking out the back window of the house and I swear I saw an actual BEAR walking from north to south, outside of my back chainlink fence. I could see the thick black shape, with thick black legs. By the time I got closer to the window, the view of the creature's path was blocked from my view by trees.

I thought - aww, okay, what if it's just Niko (my big dog), so I checked, and Niko was asleep on the front porch. I stood on the back porch and looked out, and then I saw a deer walking by. I thought - there's no way a deer would just wander along the same path as a BEAR, is there? Yes, that's it - I must have seen a deer the first time, with really thick legs, yeah... shadows, yeah...

We have a deer carcass out in our front woods, and the other day I noticed it had been dragged about 3 yards from its original location. Yes, bears will eat carcasses.
In the evenings the dogs often bark at something off in the woods - I figured it was directed at whatever scavenger was working on the carcass never once imaging that scavenger could actually be a BEAR...

I think it really was a bear.

My critters mostly stay inside of the chain link fence, except for the cats. We just walked along the back fence and saw nothing definitive. The carcass in the front woods is almost down to bone, so that bear buffet is almost over. But now I suspect we know what dragged the carcass so far.



Although an older article, it shows that bears have been spotted out this way:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=9154045

From: http://www.ncwildlife.org/Learning/Species/Mammals/BlackBear/TransientBearsinTownsandCities.aspx

"Are black bears dangerous?
Black bears, by nature, are not aggressive animals. They peacefully coexist in close proximity to humans year-round throughout North Carolina. The presence of bears in these new areas should not be immediately viewed as cause for alarm or fear."

Bears in Central North Carolina:
http://www.co.orange.nc.us/AnimalServices/documents/BearsinCentralNorthCarolina_fromWebsite.pdf

Black Bear:
http://www.ncwildlife.org/Learning/Species/Mammals/BlackBear.aspx

Chickens, Roosters, and Getting Ready for the Cold

Stay warm everyone! We are expecting a low tonight of 12 °F, and a high tomorrow of 23 °F - for central NC that is absolutely ARCTIC!!!

Today I just shored up the chicken coop for the coming arctic blast. Over the coming Spring I plan to make the changes more permanent (i.e. with hinges and latches and such) but for now the lower venting windows are all covered-over with scraps and feedbags and whatnot.

Since the gals were not bothered by the nesting-box curtains I added awhile ago, I stapled up a simple feed-bag fringe-door cover for between the run and house. I hope it blocks some of the cold, and they are not too freaked out to go thru it. If so, I can easily pop it back off.

Molting

This morning I thought my chickens must have had a huge pillow-fight overnight in the coop - there was an explosion of white feathers everywhere! But it's just Snowflake, the white Leghorn, molting. White feathers really do stand out, though!

I was delighted to get 2 eggs so far today - maybe even 3, since Honeysuckle the buff Minorca hen is still busy in the box. I do miss eggs from Mocha (light-greenish eggs) and from Astrid, my Hamburg (small light pinkish ones, delicately shaped). They are both just finishing their molt. Snowflake's self-inflicted pillow-fight most likely signifies the start of her molt, so it will be awhile before we get  back to our daily supply of jumbo white eggs... By next Spring we should be up to about a dozen a day! Yikes!

Chipmunk's Rooster Woes

I have a small mixed flock of 14 birds, just over half of which are non-bantam. We had 2 (accidental) Silkie roosters, Chipmunk and Freyr. After much consideration, we gave Freyr, the more dominant one, away. The girls had accepted Freyr's advances, but he harassed my husband, and having 2 roos was too much noise.

Chipmunk tries, but he is really bad at roostering. He has no idea how to flirt with the girls - they run away from him. It's worse than watching middle-schoolers on the playground. Occasionally when he does jump on one, he is too small to, um, make the connection. In the morning when I let them out, I watch him chase girl after girl with no luck. It's really kinda sad to watch, although I did have to laugh when the largest gal we have just stood her ground and gave him a "oh really?" look this morning. Is there anything I can do to help him integrate better into the flock? The girls all laugh at him, poor boy!

I have tried little things... He sleeps outside on the run's roosting bar with the one gal he does NOT harass (Mocha), and when it's cold, we move them both into the coop. I try to put them both on the highest roosting bar. The 2 Silkie gals are usually broody, but when then are out and about in the morning he's on them first thing if he can be.

He's not aggressive, he's just freakin' clueless on how to entice the ladies. He's an incredibly adorable bird (a Partridge Silkie) but just an absolute loser in the Mojo & Flirting department. I hope he can improve.