Yesterday was a nice day in the field with perfect weather, and three kinds of quarry dug to -- raccoon, groundhog and possum.
Mountain located a raccoon in a dirt den underneath a massive brush pile. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say I managed to burrow down into the brush pile and sink a bore hole between mountain and the raccoon. I then twisted the post hole diggers so they blocked Mountain from reaching the raccoon, and she got the idea and finally came out. Good thing too, as there was no digging her out, and she was not coming off that raccoon any other way!
I leashed up Mountain and we drove to another farm a short way up the road, where we quickly located a groundhog and dispatched it at the farm manager's request.
I estimate I have taken 200 groundhog off of this particular farm, and there are not many left, though the farm manager says he has lost a few turkeys to a coyote, and the farm across the road took an enormous coyote last month -- the largest in the County so far.
The dogs checked a few more holes, and Mountain located a pretty tough-acting possum, which I pulled before Mountain decided to teach it respect. Possums are pretty harmless creatures, and though Dave the farm manager has chickens this fellow was toward the back of the farm, so I released him with nothing more than a stern warning.
This possum was released unharmed.
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2 comments:
the possum is the one I would have let the dogs have. Growing up in deep South Texas, where most people don't innoculate their possums against rabies, all children were taught to fear and loathe possums. It was rabies shots in the stomach after petting the "kitty" resting under the shrub!
I asume you meant "innoculte their DOGS against rabies"?
Believe it or not, possums very rarely carry rabies as their body temperature is too low for the germ to live very long inside a possum. Yes, they can in theory be carriers for a few days, but it is very rare. Raccoons, however, are just about the most common rabies vector. Google the blog ("rabies") for more information and I think I even have a rabies incidence map for the U.S. Possums can carry a brain worm for horses, which is one reason to knock them out on a horse farm (or if next to a horse farm).
P
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