The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Corin Stormhands]

Isn't that what the old timers did? Or was that for wolves?

I thought that's what you did for Jehovah's Witnesses...

[HairOfTheDog]

I want to kill one and hang it on the fence to scare others away.

Dramatic, but I think you will only attract scavengers.

Use at least a 22 rifle if you want to kill it. I think LF was giving you suggestions on how to scare it away with a painful spray in the butt.

[2Jedismom]

LOL!!!

A Warg on the fence. I like it.

[HairOfTheDog]

No, I think he talkin' bout hangin' the JW on the fence, not the warg.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

The chickens were all standing at attention real quiet by the barn. At first I thought they had gotten my favorite hen, who I have learned from 2J's pictures, is probably a buff orpingtion. But she was busy in a nesting box laying an egg:). She's the only gold chicken I have, the rest are Rhode Island Reds, or mutts. It looks like some of the chicks are going to take after her though, which doesn't surprise me, she is my best layer 1 every day.

Becky

[Corin Stormhands]

Six of one. Half dozen of another...

[Sam Cree]

I read where, not too many years ago, in LA, I think, a group of coyotes broke into the city zoo and ate something like 30 flamingos during just one night.

[Corin Stormhands]

Did they get sick from all that plastic?

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Mack said birdshot would not even reach to where the barn is, where they are going, and besides, I think shotguns spray, and spread out farther as they go. The horses would be right in the path.

Besides I don't just want to scare them. I think there really are getting to be alot of them around here. I never use to see them. I think they are overpopulating.

Becky

[ksen]

DVD copies of raw footage of Apollo missions!

Ohh, my kids would love to see those!

[HairOfTheDog]

If there is no dog-proof fence between the chickens and the woods, you might consider a german shepherd, great pyrenese, or some other breed with a guarding the herd instinct! You really probably don't even need or want for a dog to be loose, just the display will make most coyotes go somewhere else for breakfast.

I haven't worried about the couple of coyotes I have seen in the pasture, because I know they are thinning the bunnies (who can afford the losses at this point as long as I don't have to see it!) and the coyotes can't get into the paddock or compound fences without a shock.

[ksen]

Will they be back the same time tomorrow?

Not if you shoot them.....but you didn't hear that from me.

[HairOfTheDog]

I have a flock of doves Sam! - They are not real common here, and I saw them yesterday but too far away and too shy for me to ID them.... They are back this morning, and they are doves, picking around the paddock in the morning!

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

That may be why I didn't have problems till now. The heelers use to be out there all the time. Now with that one gone,the other one being older is now sleeping in the house. I don't have the heart to put her out at night all by her self. But when they were both out there they were always barking. I use to check to see what it was and never saw nothing. We got to where we thought they barked everytime a cricket farted:), but maybe not.

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

They might be overpopulating, but you also have a pretty attractive 'draw' for them now that you didn't used to have as many of? - They can hear those chickens a long ways away. If the coyotes come around much, the chickens will get wary. Do they have high places they can roost? If you built them high nest boxes and roosts would they use them?

[HairOfTheDog]

Couple new blue heeler pups perhaps!

[Sam Cree]

It strikes me funny, the coyotes eating pink birds. Maybe they were elf coyotes.

[g'nad]

.22 at a minimum... if yer not keepin' the pelt, then I'd use anythin' yuh got handy... .243, 30.06, grenade, howitzer...

if yer close, say, 40 yards or less, a shotgun with buckshot is great... single 0, 00... if yer that close, a handgun is feasible... if yer a good enuff shot... I dropped one at 50 yards with my .45 ACP...

gotta git to work a'fore'n it gits too hot...

osage, I'll get you some pics of the yard that we want to put the path in...

[Sam Cree]

Doves are nice, they make a pretty call.

There is a tropical one here, don't believe they are native to FL., though they are now everywhere in Miami. But they make a really weird call, sounds just like a kazoo, only a little softer. And there's a miniature one you see in the islands, identical to an ordinary dove, but the size of a song bird.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

I wondered if having more chickens then I use too might have contributed to them showing up. I was loosing alot of chickens this past winter. Didn't realize it at first.

More blue heeler pups??? NO WAY. Heelers and horses do not go together, IMO. Heelers need cows to work.

Becky