Several months ago, my husband decided he wanted to find a little "hobby" for our son Adam. He thought it would be fun to raise some baby chicks so one Saturday, he and Adam take off for Dunlop Hatchery, supposed to be bringing home some pre-hatched chicks.
Two hundred and thirty dollars later, they came home with an incubator and 2 dozen chicken eggs. "We decided it would be a lot more fun to watch them hatch," he explained. The hatchery told him the day the chicks should be born so we all anxiously waited. The big day arrived and I was told that I needed to stay home with the eggs just in case one needed help getting out. OK...
I called my boss (ok, he's really a good friend who's given me some menial tasks to do for their business and I usually only work 1 hour per day simply because if it's not something his own 7 year old daughter could do, it's probably way beyond me) and told him I couldn't come to work because I had to stay home with the eggs. If you're running out of sick day excuses at work, you could try this one - it worked for me. Not a single egg hatched that day.
Three more days passed before we had our first born. It really was cute! After all was done, we had about 8 chickens from 2 dozen eggs. Well that was so much fun, he decided we'd try 3 dozen quail eggs ($24). We had about 20 hatch and 4 died because I wasn't willing to use the "I need to stay home with the eggs" excuse again.
Next came 2 dozen pheasant eggs ($32). Again, I wasn't staying home to babysit eggs. Four hatched - 2 died.
For about 2 months now, we've had all 8 chickens, 20 quail, and 2 pheasants in a small pen (4x4) in our backyard. They've all grown up and it was getting way too crowded so my husband decided it was time to build them a bigger home. We went to Home Depot and $395 and three days later we now have a nice bird pen that's 8x24 - the birds are happy.
Three nights ago, before our new pen was finished, we noticed that a raccoon had been trying to feast on our birds. He/she had scratched and knawed at the tiny pen trying to snag one and drag it out through the chicken wire. Well my husband was gonna have none of that! He borrowed a live trap from one of his trapping buddies and after much discussion with said trapping buddy, came up with a perfect plan to catch that raccoon. With great care, he set a can of cat food at the very back of the trap and proudly proclaimed that he had set the trap with a "hair trigger."
First thing the next morning, he excitedly ran out the back door to see his prize. Instead of hearing the expected proclamation of "Got him!" I hear, "Dirty bastard tripped the trap!" Guess that hair trigger thing isn't a good idea when you're trying to catch a 30 pound coon.
Last night, he sets the trap a little tighter and made darn sure that the can of cat food was CLEAR at the back so the dirty bugger would have to go ALL the way in to get the food. I have to admit that I was even excited to go out and see how big the coon was. "Dirty son of a Bitch - this is war!" is what rang through the neighborhood at 7 am.
Being born the daughter of a Game Warden, we raised many animals that had been abandoned by their mothers. One favorite was a raccoon who had been born blind. She was so much fun and when you grow up with them, you learn that they are much like children. They use their hands like we do and can reach up on things, through things, and around things if they think there's something there that they need/want. It's really quite cute, and they're really quite smart!
Well our "wascaly wabbit" had learned from the previous night, NOT to go inside the trap. All it had to do, was go around the back of the trap, and reach through the very large holes with it's cute little hands and dig the cat food out of the can and put it in it's mouth. So, when my husband went again, to claim his prize, he realized he had once again, been skunked.
So, tonight he has again put another can of cat food in the live trap, covered the back of the cage with a towel so the coon can't reach through the back of it, and has proclaimed that TONIGHT he will catch that coon. Now it's a game - game on! My husband actually does kind of remind me of Elmer Fudd...
I can't wait to see what the morning brings!
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