Are not something I even want to contemplate.
This story of one taking a dog right out of a house, right out of someone's bedroom, flat makes me shudder. Even if the door was open. (HT to A Coyote at the Dog Show)
Right now, even though we haven't seen one, we suspect we have a black bear hanging around the place. Little things have tipped us off to the possibility of something unusual going on around us, such as the behavior of the cattle. Last night the men left us women to milk alone. No biggie; we do it all the time. However, this time it turned out to be simply a nightmare. Cows knocked milkers off. Cows crowded and thumped on us. Cows that NEVER kick, such as little Camry, who seems to appreciate Alan's efforts in saving her life this spring, kicked and kicked and kicked.
Then, when we turned them up the hill, as we always do while we finish up the last few cows, they bolted back down to the barn and all came right back inside. It is is not unusual for one or two to wander back in to look for spilled grain or just to pester us, but my whole south line ran back in at once, jumped into their stalls, then the heifers, which stay outside and don't even HAVE stalls, came in and crowded up between the cows.
It was nuts. We didn't get dinner until almost ten.
They were fine this morning.
If it was a bear, I hope it has moved along. We thought we had one last summer, because of some similar weird goings on, but we never actually saw it. After a while the strange things just stopped happening and the cows calmed back down to normal. As far as mountain lions go, I hope I never, ever see one....especially not in my bedroom. Especially not eating my dog.
And I don't want to see one in my garden either.
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9 comments:
Oh boy. Didn't like the sounds of your night last night. Something was certainly up. No one stayed out with a gun to keep watch? (Not that I would have either.) That's the tough part of farmlife. We can read our animals, and know something is up, but can't always do anything about it, except mmm, pray maybe.
I'll keep my fingers crossed, no mountain lion for sure, and that if it was a bear, it went on his merry way.
Yup,that always gives me the spooks ,
not knowing what they know is out there,- We've had bear visiting down the road and don't want to personally meet it when out doing chores in the morning dark. I was walking the dog down the road one dark morning, he just stopped dead, didn't even growl, and turned me around for home as fast as he could, never knew why, maybe the coyotes(which we used to hear up in back) or bear were around?
Lordy, that's scary!
I'm glad we don't have either. At least your cows know where to find a sake haven:)
In case it is a bear, clean out your bird feeders, any kind of food that could attract it closer to the house or barn. They do scare off easily though. Make lots of noise going outside after dark. We had a couple that would visit our farm off and on. Our neighbors cows and our horses got so used to seeing them they stopped reacting. I got some great video of one destroying my birdfeeder about 4' from my front door one morning. As soon as I banged on the window, he took off hightailing it back to the woods. Just don't surprise them!
Teri, it was pretty awful. Even though the boss had other work to do we asked him to stay in and help us last night. Then they didn't bother at all and just behaved normally.
Mari, it does me too.
Sounds like you have a smart dog! I'll bet there was something out there! We rely on Wally, our Queensland Blue Heeler, who isn't mentioned much as he is not so much of a pet, to alert us to the unusual around the house at least. He has certain barks that mean certain things, and except when he gets upset about folks down on the bike path, he is pretty reliable.
Dani, it sure was miserable. Last year Liz was bringing the cows in and something large started making a lot of noise in the bushes. Believe it or not, her big show cow, Mandy, came and pushed her away from it down to the barn
Linda, I am so glad we don't have them as far as we know. There is an ongoing movement to establish them here but so far it hasn't gained any traction.
IG, thanks for some excellent advice. So far we haven't seen one, but I am hoping if we do it stays out of my tomatoes and such!
That's terrible, you don't need anything making chores longer, and lurking things that will make the production go down.
Hopefully, "it" was just passing through. (fingers crossed)
I like the "wildlife" in the previous photo better!
Nita, I like the froggies a lot better too. We do everything we can to make them welcome. The cows have pretty much calmed down, although our blue heeler gave some alerts last night. Maybe whatever it was has moved along. Hope so
Anon, First of all as far as I can see from the story, all they did was set a trap and have not killed anything. And what would you prefer that they do? Feed it their other dog? Maybe a kid or two? Back in earlier times wild predators like lions knew that humans would shoot them if they came near. There were a lot more lions then, yet there were a lot fewer incidents of them eating folks or pets because they respected humans. Now instead of seeing us as dangerous they see us as lunch. I am not comfortable with that.
I stand corrected. A later news story did show that they killed the lion...the right thing to do in my opinion.
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