Dave Anderson
Red fox, raccoon, opossum, skunk, deer, weasel, mink, owl, feral cat, gopher, gray fox, coyote, feral cat, dog, hawk, fisher, eagle, black bear, mouse.
A friend in Somerset shot a raccoon his dog had treed in the yard. “Was it doing something?” I asked. “No, not this time” he replied, and seemingly bothered by my question, gave a sweeping wave of his arm toward the river valley and added: “They have a thousand acres there; they don’t need to come here.” This guy is very reasonable, and kind and considerate, so I wondered how he could make such a weird declaration about the boundaries to be observed by wild animals.
Within two years of starting my small-scale, pasture-raised chicken farm, the wild thieves found out where I was and what I was up to. I knew that predators were out there, because I’d read about them in books (ha!), but until that stunning sight of only four young chickens in the pasture pen where there were 40 the evening before, I had no real idea of how they could wipe out work and investment. Someone told me it was probably a pair of foxes with a den of hungry kits (young), and that they’d take as many as they could get and stash them in a hole to eat from for weeks to come. Canines of course can eat things that we can’t, and unlike Fido who barfs up a road-kill snack on the living room carpet, wild canines can apparently tolerate weeks-old chicken carcass just fine.
My initial shock tilted quickly to anger and ideas about shooting and/or trapping. I called the DNR biologist in Baldwin; she told me that you can shoot any predator on your property, except for protected raptors like eagles, hawks and owls. Since I hadn’t owned a gun in a long time, I asked about trapping. She responded that unless you are an expert, it is almost impossible to catch a fox, and even then, releasing a live-trapped animal is illegal without special permission – even on public land like a state park (you’d think they’d want an extra fox for people to see when they visit, but nope). I also thought about my Somerset friend and his “1,000 acres” remark, and it started to sound more reasonable – a modest expectation that I should stay where I am with my chickens, and the thieves should stay where they are – catching and eating whatever they are supposed to catch and eat.
I thought about the pocket gophers I’ve trapped to keep the vegetable garden intact (and saving the tails to collect the $3.25 bounty), and the skunk I shot (later finding out there are ways of releasing them from a live trap without the obvious risk).
I remembered a book titled Farming with the Wild by Dan Imhoff, which profiles farmers (including Osceola area Common Harvest farmers Dan Guenthner and Margaret Pennings) who’ve learned that with limits, and an eye toward conservation, we can live with, and control, wild things that eat our animals and destroy our crops.
Still, I was at wits end and ready to give up on chickens.
Then, in kindness and consideration for my recent tragic loss, my Somerset friend came by and gave me a small fence charger, a spool of fencing wire and 30 seconds of instruction on setting it up. I haven’t had a single predator kill in the five years since.
The odd thing about electric fencing to repel predators is I’ve never actually seen it work since most predators strike at night. Consequently, besides me and our dog Bart getting shocked, the only direct evidence of effectiveness are screams in the night from a hidden, would-be eater. Our neighbor Dan’s dog Loki got shocked (Dan forgot my warning about pulling the plug on the fence), ran all the way home and for two years would not take one step onto our driveway when Dan and Margaret would stop by to visit. Animals remember!
Blasting away isn’t the only solution or the best one. I’ve learned that although some boundaries between the wild world and our food and “stuff” need to be maintained, we can’t control everything. In fact, our efforts to do so are often damaging beyond our vision and knowledge, and at times have resulted in extinctions and, maybe more disturbing, us bowing to our primal instincts of anger and retaliation.
I give thanks for lessons learned and help from friends, and hats off to Bill Gallagher, a New Zealand farmer and inventor who developed electric fencing in 1936 as a system to control farm animals – one option for keeping things in balance.
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