Sunday was a good day in the field, with a trifecta of groundhog, fox and raccoon bolted or dug to.
It was very warm for February -- maybe 50 degrees. Glorious!
Not a good day for fox, of course, but perhaps a good day for early groundhog.
I was hopeful.
I decided to visit a 2,500 acre farm a half hour from my house which is leased to hunters under the Pittman-Robertson program.
The dogs and I had not gone too far before they pinged on a simple dirt den just inside the forest line near a corn field.
It was an easy dig to a sad animal -- a starving groundhog with an enormous growth on the side of its face. I dispatched it, and then examined it closer to see if I could find the nature of its health problem.
It turned out this groundhog had a very bad case of dental malocclusion, in which the teeth did not line up for some reason.
Rodent teeth, contrary to popular belief, are not worn down very much by gnawing on food (most of which is pretty soft), but by rubbing and clicking against each other as they eat, gnaw and vocalize.
When the teeth are far out of alignment, as they were here, the top or bottom teeth will grow uninterrupted, eventually piercing the top or bottom of jaw. The teeth may even pierce the brain case.
This poor fellow was one of those rare unfortunates with very maloccluded teeth which had curved around in a huge scimitar-like circle.
One of the teeth had actually pierced the roof of the groundhog's mouth, and the other had gone through his lower jaw resulting in a massive and hard scar-tissue like growth on one side of its face.
This poor animal had been enduring months of unending pain, followed by a winter of starvation. Now his misery was over.
The dogs and I moved on, finding another fine sette a bit farther on, but no one was home. I put it in the brain bank for another day.
Mountain and Pearl examine a spoils pile pushed out of a den at the base of this tree.
We came to a ridge below which a massive frozen swamp pitched out below us.
Mountain ran down the steep hill, and Pearl and I watched her from the top. It was going to be a loooong walk up if nothing was down there, and from the heights I could see where she went as the trees are still bare sticks.
The swamp below the ridge.
Suddenly, Pearl bounded down the hill and I noticed that Mountain had disappeared from view.
Had she tucked in under that downed tree on that little knoll? I waited a bit, not quite sure where she had entered and then out of nowhere a fox appeared, trotting away from the downed tree and up a dry creek bed towards me and to the left.
Pearl, of course, had not seen it. With her eyes only 14 inches off the ground, or so, and mindful of the steep drop down the side of the ridge, she was too focused on staying up right and going in the correct general direction of where she had seen Mountain disappear. By the time I looked away from her and back towards the fox, it had disappeared.
Mountain appeared on top just as Pearl arrived at the log, and I whistled them both up to me which did not quite work as well as it sounds, as they both zig-zagged around below following the scent of what might have been before quiting to follow me down the ridge some more.
We trundled along at the top for a while, and then I swung up and across an old sunflower field and into a hedgerow.
Mountain liked one hole in the hedge quite a lot, but after a long time underground in which she never opened up, she came out and gave me a look.
Well?
Well what? She seemed to shrug, and then headed off across a dry creek where she seemed to find again at the base of an old stump.
Mountain liked this stump quite a bit, and so I gathered up the tools and crossed over the creek and downed them again.
Mountain slid in, and I tied up Pearl. This was going to be the hole.
And it was.
There were a lot of thick roots in this sette, and it took some sawing and light digging to get to where we needed to go, but Mountain got there in the end, much to the surprise of a female raccoon which I snared out and released up a tree to chase again another day.
Released up the tree unharmed.
.
Mountain just before we headed for the car. Dirt will make a white Russell look like a Fell terrier. And look at that expression; she hates the leash! She knows it means the fun is done.
.
6 comments:
Interesting post...
I would be leery to let ours off the leash to do this...we have 4 miniature schnauzers...
I know that's what kind of dogs they are, but nonetheless...LOL...I'm a protective mommy!
I always find your blog to be very interesting...
Kimberly :)
P.S. The other reason I popped by today was to let you know that I've added you to my Terrier Resources page on my TerrierLover.com website: http://TerrierLover.com/?page_id=512
I hope you could provide a link exchange with me as well if you enjoy my blog... KE :)
I've always heard this tooth thing could happen in rodentia - what an interesting thing to see in the field. --And I appreciate your compassion towards the animal, sir.
Patrick, good on ya for recognising the malocclusion of the groundhog and humanely dealing with it. I've only seen that condition once, in a pet rabbit years ago, and it required a fair bit of maintenance to keep him chewing properly. With a sickening snap, the vet would whack off his incisors and he'd be good to go for a few months. I'm glad, too, that the raccoon and fox remain for another day. Sure sounds like the right decisions to me.
Seahorse
The same thing strikes me as the other commentators note, the value of compassion and knowledge when working the land as a hunter. There are a lot of people who dont do things properly and they only fuel the maniacal agendas of the anti hunting and PETA loony lobby. I really appreciate this piece. It shows that a good day in the country involves many different things and that it is a good day indeed, when mercy is dealt and the hunter is not frustrated that a couple of things got away. Nice dogs Pat.
Jonathan Cape Town
Patrick, you said you were "hopeful" it would be a "good day for early groundhog".
I've always wondered where they go?? I'm assuming they are in their dens all curled up and hibernating but I've never seen you reference finding one while winter hunting?? Fox, raccoon and opossum, as I learned from you, will use the groundhog holes in winter....but where are the groundhogs?
Is it that bc they are so still while hibernating that there is no scent for the dogs to pick up (doubt that)? Or, do they close themselves in another hole with no eye for the dogs to enter (but what about ventilation)?
I'm confused!
Groundhogs do true hibernation for about 2-3 months around here, and when they go to ground around Dec 1 or so, they do not move out or eat, and so the dogs get no scent. The heart beat drops from about 90 a minute to about 8. The den entraces are back-filled with soil and what little hole that is left will have leaves in it and will offer no way in for the dog.
Not all groundhogs come out of hibernation -- winter mortality appears to be high due to pneumonia, which I think is often due to bad drainage. That said, there is always at least one or two groundhogs every winter who do not seem to "get the memo" and can be found by the dogs because they have trundled out to take a quick pee, or have gotten hungry or randy.
Male groundhogs will start to move out in February in order to look for mates. Once mated, the females just roll over and go back to sleep for another three weeks or so. I have dug groundhogs in the dead of winter, and even have pictures of the dogs entering through solid ice, but you have to have a good dog to catch the scent.
Field holes are generally empty in winter, with the groundhogs prefering to jungle up in hedgerow and forest settes. At least that is my experience.
I have a bit more here:
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/12/groundhog-hiberation.html
and
http://www.terrierman.com/groundhogdeath.htm
and
http://www.terrierman.com/lifehabitatgh.htm
Patrick
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