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Why I shoot porcupines

B

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
22,792
Location
Big Muddy valley
This was today's adventure
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These were a bad one last spring that we should have found earlier. :(
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IMG]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/opgall/May42008008.jpg[/IMG]
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Awe dang that makes my face hurt. :shock: Ok Dr how the heck do you treat a nasty mess like that ( do see the pliers)? We don't have them darn porcupines and I am sure glad. We seem to only have skunks around now and I don't know weather it's breeding season or what but they sure are a bunch of little stinkers lately. Sure makes checking for calve a little spooky at night.... :roll: :wink: Hope the ole girl comes out of it ok....
 
Ugh! That's always a fun project plucking quills :mad: . I was fixing fence last spring when my dog found and rolled in a dead porcupine :roll: . It was along the interstate right-of-way, and I had to wrestle the dog to the ground to pull them out. I'm sure passing cars thought I was killing my dog... I wasn't, but felt like it :lol: .
 
How did she heal up in the end?
Porcupine's are also hard on anything made of plywood, which is reason enough alone too eliminate them let alone damage like you've shown here.
 
I lost a brand new spare tire to one of those suckers one time...Coming back from Helena one night and this big porkie was going across the road and the wife hit it square center...Rolled it the length of the outfit- and when I checked the spare that was mounted underneath the next morning- it looked like Custer after the last stand- and was leaking air...My tire guy said he could never get all those quills out- so I bought a new one....
 
We pulled quills and then pulled some more, Checked inside the eye lid as some went on through. Quite a few were broke off short.took some time but she did get to standing as she seemed to know we were helping. A horse probably wouldn't have. :-)
I will have to watch to see if i can get her picture feeding some time.
 
Sorry about your day BMR. That's one job I have yet to do on a cow. There are not as many porkys here as there was back 30 years. I saw only one in the last two years.
Did the cow in the older pics have quills right in her eyeball or did she get pinkeye from the irritation?
 
gcreekrch said:
Sorry about your day BMR. That's one job I have yet to do on a cow. There are not as many porkys here as there was back 30 years. I saw only one in the last two years.
Did the cow in the older pics have quills right in her eyeball or did she get pinkeye from the irritation?
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I think the quills either pierced or scratched the eye ball.
We have shot lots in years past but the last few winters have probably shot close to 20 every year. I have had them in one stack yard where the cows winter and it's a fair way from any trees and then back the coulee where the calves winter we get them.
 
Hey stretch do you know if the skunks that you got around you rabid. We had a neighbor shot a skunk about 3 weeks ago and it came back rabid. I was out working on some corals and my dogs scared 6 of the damm things up scared the crap out of me :shock: Then they spraid my dogs which I had my pickup with in spitting distance from where all this happened. Talk about a smelly ride home that night.
 
Hey stretch do you know if the skunks that you got around you rabid. We had a neighbor shot a skunk about 3 weeks ago and it came back rabid. I was out working on some corals and my dogs scared 6 of the damm things up scared the crap out of me Then they spraid my dogs which I had my pickup with in spitting distance from where all this happened. Talk about a smelly ride home that night.
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I honestly haven't heard anything about them being rabid but it wouldn't surprise me a bit. I bet I have seen at least 6-8 of them dead on the road withing about 10 miles from home. Man I can't believe how bad they stink luckily I haven't been one of the "Road Killers". :wink: :lol: I haven't had a dog get sprayed lately but dang I know I had one close the other night as it smelled so bad my eye were watering so bad I couldn't hardly finish checking the cows.... :shock:
 
Stretch said:
Hey stretch do you know if the skunks that you got around you rabid. We had a neighbor shot a skunk about 3 weeks ago and it came back rabid. I was out working on some corals and my dogs scared 6 of the damm things up scared the crap out of me Then they spraid my dogs which I had my pickup with in spitting distance from where all this happened. Talk about a smelly ride home that night.
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I honestly haven't heard anything about them being rabid but it wouldn't surprise me a bit. I bet I have seen at least 6-8 of them dead on the road withing about 10 miles from home. Man I can't believe how bad they stink luckily I haven't been one of the "Road Killers". :wink: :lol: I haven't had a dog get sprayed lately but dang I know I had one close the other night as it smelled so bad my eye were watering so bad I couldn't hardly finish checking the cows.... :shock:
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Back about twenty years ago, in the middle of the night I was trying to pour milk down the throat of a calf with a pop bottle. This was before the nice esophageal drenchers had been invented. I was sitting astraddle of this calf in the middle of a box stall. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a skunk meandering down the alley way, and darned if he didn't come right in the stall where the calf and I were located. I tried to sit as quietly and nonchalantly as possible, knowing full well if he became alarmed, the air would get unbreathable mighty fast. He made a circle around the calf and I, and then wandered back out the same gate he had come in. I literally and figuratively breathed a sigh of relief and fresh air. After that I started carrying a .22 with me while checking cows in the night, and managed to do away with several of those black and white critters in the next few night. The calving lot didn't smell very spiffy, but it was worth it to get rid of the skunks.
 
I shoot every one I see too. After a session or two of pulling quills out of cows, horses and dogs you develop a real dislike for them. A couple of years ago 2 neighbors and I shot about 130 of them over the winter. We weren't hunting them just shooting the ones we seen. I trapped 11 in a live trap over the winter in the bin where I was keeping the pellets for my replacement heifers.
 
Soooo glad we don't have anything like that down here..... that made my eyes water just lookin' at the pics!!!
 
Around here it is the Racoons we have to kill. With so many city folk in the area that put food out for them and the deer thay are both out of hand.

A neighbor got 45 coons out of his machine shed in three days - - they will ruin the equipment. Deer will ruin your hay supplies and the front of your cars. At least you can get people to hunt the deer but the coons aren't worth anything anymore so they just become dog food.

On the rare occasion one of the coons comes to the house the dogs make quick work of it on there own but if I find signs in the barns I will serve it up for them.
 
This is why I shoot porcupines:


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They also went around and chewed all the wiring they could reach on our mini-pivots....had to re-wire and put wire through metal conduit. Doggone critters, anyway :mad:
 

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