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Monday, May 18, 2009

Where the Wild Things Are

They are here. With us. On the farm, in the fields, in the yard, in the trees, sometimes even in the buildings.
Sometimes they make our jobs harder. There was something under the grates in the milking barn last week...We didn't know it until we were bringing in the cows and they started flying through the air like Pegasus or maybe really, really big popcorn. It was probably a raccoon that came in through the stable cleaner chute. It chattered and rattled and terrified the cows, especially Blitz, who jumped a gate into the manger almost on top of me and Alan. It was adrenaline pumping, running and jumping ourselves time for a while....

Now we have to have a big, high gate in that spot, because even though there is nothing under the grates now Blitz is terrified to pass that corner and wants to escape into the manger...twice a day...every day...so does Licorice!

Most times though the wild things bring us immeasurable joy and delight. They add so much to the daily experience of living outdoors in a beautiful and natural setting, while working hard at growing food for America. We actively protect and encourage most critters. For example, I won't let the grey fox family be harmed, even though they eat ALL our berries, as long as they leave the hen house alone. They live right in the three bay shed quite near the house. The boss likes wild turkeys so he leaves out a few rows of corn most years for them and the deer.

However, we can't let them eat or kill everything we own. So we have loosely defined rules and guidelines for dealing with the wild things.

Coyotes should stay out of sight of the buildings and away from the calving pasture. There are 320 acres here of wood chucks, rabbits, a virtual plethora of fat, grain fed (yeah, there was a whole field of our corn that we couldn't get in last fall, that they ate all winter) turkeys, and an almost infinite number of small rodents for their dining pleasure. And deer. If they want big game there are deer. They are welcome in the ag bag field where they eat rats and mice that tear open the bags and spoil the feed.
However, if we see them harassing pregnant cows we will shoot them.
Simple and it seems to me quite fair. We are keeping a huge chunk of land open and welcoming to things they can eat. We know where all the dens are, but we leave them alone.

We ask in turn that they leave newborn babies and birthing mothers off the menu. And they are smart adaptive animals. They can learn. If we quit farming this farm, which borders directly on several housing developments, any new owners will probably not offer them quite as good a deal.

And our farm is kind of a wonder in this modern world of border to border, single crop cultivation. We have woods. We have small fields with thick, brushy hedgerows. They are not a glory in the eye of the extension agent, but the wild things love them...food...corridors for safe and secret travel over our acreage..rocky places for dens and trees and brush of all kinds for nests and hiding places. We could easily bulldoze them all out and grow more corn, but we would rather provide a barrier to erosion and a place for trees and tanagers.

I don't think when we shoot predators that are taking our livestock that we are doing anything immoral or wrong in the natural scheme of things. They protect their own as best they can and we are merely doing the same. We don't go out and wipe out dens or kill things that aren't bothering us or the stock. However, the Eastern coyote moved into this area in the late 70's filling a niche left vacant when wolves were wiped out long before I was born. They are much bigger than Western coyotes and much more eager to eat large animals. In some places they have decimated deer populations. We can't let them kill our cows and calves. And they would.

Around here
in recent years they have maimed an elderly pony just down the road and disemboweled calving cows belonging to neighbors, eating the emerging baby as it was being born and killing both mother and baby. (Didn't turn out well for the coyotes either, as the farmer saw them and went for his gun). However, that is simply not something up with which we are going to put.

We personally have had them eat a downer cow that we were nursing back to health...pretty much alive.... in one night..and take probably ten or twelve calves over the years. Not to mention one poor little bull calf, whose ears they ate off. He lived, but...They grew so bold at one point before we lived here that a pair stood on the back porch growling at the nurse who had come to tend to the boss's late mother during her final illness. The nurse had to call us to come drive them away!

So we coexist with the wild things, feed some of them, like the wild birds, leave corn out for the turkeys and deer most years, leave the coyotes alone at the back of the farm but do not welcome them in sight of buildings or in the calving pasture.
The cows are under our protection.
We remove their horns and keep them inside fences and breed them for quiet temperament.
It is our job to protect them.
So we do.




15 comments:

Moms Musings said...

You've really found a way for everyone to live together peacefully. How smart to leave some crops and woods for the critters. Personally,I'd be like the nurse if I ever came across a coyote.

~ Sara ~ said...

Well said...

Paula said...

This is a wonderful post. I grew-up on a small farm with the same loose rules. One year, though, a mama couger taught her triplets to hunt on my lamb crop. Seems she forgot the rules...

Dani said...

I like that you and the Boss don't kill willy nilly. Good logical thinking thrown in with good hearts. Yep, y'all are mighty fine people.

Earl said...

Nice thing about those developments around, they don't go hunting the things that make their cats and dogs disappear - they hardly ever see them, don't know how to read tracks and lots don't carry firearms with intent to snuff wild things. If the only coyotes left are the ones feeding on the wild life and the development it will be well, but like the government and tax policy I think the stuff is in their DNA, you will have to thin them out once in a while.

Jinglebob said...

This is one of the best posts I have ever read. And I have read literally thousands of them! You covered my feelings exactly! Way to go. Hair on yuh!

Jeffro said...

Beautiful!

threecollie said...

Cathy M, thanks, we enjoy them...in their places...as long as our animals are safe.

Sara, thanks!

Paula, Yow!!!! We don't have cougars and I for one am intensely grateful. One of my blog friends photographed one right at the end of the garden row she was working on. I still shudder every time I think of it!

Dani, kind words indeed and I thank you. We like the wild things and our place, being posted, is somewhat of a haven for them even though Alan hunts. Our one or two deer harvested is so much less than are taken by dozens of hunters shooting everything that moves. As soon as hunting season starts every year, whole herds of them flock in

Earl, we actually once threw a guy we let hunt off the place for shooting a coyote pup. The pup lived in the back, didn't bother anything, and love to follow the chopper tires catching mice when we were cutting hay. He was vastly entertaining when we were doing a lonesome and boring job. One day we found him proudly propped against the tractor tire where the neighbor had shot him and left him. Plain as day four-wheeler tracks leading right back to his place. We had told him to leave that pup alone, but he just couldn't resist....he doesn't hunt here any more.

Jinglebob, thank you. Coming from a rancher like you that means a lot! Living with real wild critters we can't afford to live the Disney life, but it doesn't mean we don't care about them.

Jeffro, thank you too!

Throwback at Trapper Creek said...

Geez, I guess I missed the last several posts! A level head is what is needed. You guys are in charge and that is what the coyote will learn.

I just read a post by a gal in Canada (my end) and her neighbors Great Pyrenees (2)were eaten by a cougar. So much for livestock guardian dogs. They were powerless to take action, having to wait for a Wildlife Officer to travel a great distance and "assess" the situation. They found the kills, and the cougar was trapped and dispatched but it was a fairly long process.

Hope calving goes well!

Linda said...

I agree with JB, great post. It's all about common sense isn't it!

DayPhoto said...

It would be nice to live so the lion and the lamb could lie down together and the lamb not feel threatened. But that day is not here, so we like you, try to live in a loose arrangement.

You leave us alone, and we will leave you alone.

You post is well said, and very well done.

Amen, follow farmer, Amen!

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com

threecollie said...

Nita, I have never forgotten that cougar in the garden picture you posted a while back. Scared me for sure! I pray they are not brought into NY by thoughtless do gooders!

Linda, thanks, it is...and that is all too uncommon a commodity!

Thanks, Linda, I am so grateful that my farmer friends share our thoughts on this.

Ericka said...

you sound much more reasonable than a lot of people. i grew up amongst the farms of rural ohio, and we had a neighbor that was so d*mn trigger happy that he killed 2 different german shepherds that weren't even on his property 'cause they looked "coyote like" from a distance. that @$$hole would just go hunting for something to shoot. after he "accidently" shot someone's daughter's pony, neighborhood justice prevailed, but it left me a bit *ahem* gunshy.

it sounds like you have a reasonable system in place.

June said...

Wonderful. I live in a place much like yours, without large critters and without crops under (our own) cultivation. Last night we sat on the front porch and heard a coyote
"group howl" and gloried in the sound. I have walked through fields and watched a single coyote watching me. I loved that experience. You are absolutely correct that there are borders across which they can learn not to go and if they do not learn they must be dispatched.

In the winter the borders close in a little. I well remember one January middle-of-the-night when the dogs took out after something and one, then a second, then a third coyote took off out of the FRONT YARD. Having nothing else, and barefoot, I yelled and beat on the icy snowbank with my hand, feeling very much like Primitive Woman.

You BET the Eastern coyotes are bigger than Western ones! I've read that they're a hybrid of coyote and Eastern wolf, and they sure do look like it might be true.

threecollie said...

Ericka, I can certainly see how a situation like that would sour you on guns and shooting...what a jerk! He should have been in jail! We like the wild things for the most part (it is hard for me to warm up to raccoons and possums) and try to be sensible in our interactions with them

June, thanks for stopping by! That must have been some experience! Our border collie, Nick, took off after one that was right next to the house and got hit by a car down on the road (quite a long way from the house). He is fine now, but it wasn't a happy time. They really do need to stay away from the house and barns for their own good as well as ours. If they become accustomed to people there are dozens of local hunters who would be delighted to kill them.