Chickens are awfully popular, and even though Colonel Sanders probably ranks right up there in the chicken predator department, there's nothing like a critter visit to shake up your little backyard chicken world. We've seen them all—raccoons, possums, hawks, rats, vultures, foxes, owls, skunks, feral cats... Everybody out there wants to eat YOUR chickens.
What is a good chicken herder to do?
I have a never-fail recipe for critter bait, which you can put into a catch 'em live trap and then carry the offending 4-legged visitor away and either politely release it to come back, drive you nuts, and eat another chicken, or introduce it to species control of some kind. I personally don't eat 'critters', but I have some purportedly yummy recipes (I'm seriously not kidding) for fried, pied, and smothered in gravy critters if you'd like some. Just let me know.
Some people swear by peanut butter as an odorous attractant, some use dog food. I'll tell you right now it's probably NOT a good idea to use any kind of poison if you're letting your chickens roam around for organic eggs. You don't want poison showing up in the food chain if you're at the top of it. So I have a never fail recipe that I stumbled on by pure accident that critters can't resist, and has been very helpful in holding a demilitarized zone several feet into the woods around my yard.
The best part about this critter bait is that you get first dibs on it. If you've got a load of squash or some similar veggie that you're dreaming of frying up, this makes a dandy batter that fills you up so good that you'll have plenty of leftovers, and then you can use the leftovers in the catch 'em live traps. Guaranteed to tickle the nose of the pickiest critter in any imaginable weather, and that's the key to your success.
So you mix together 1 1/2 c. Bisquick, 1 t. garlic powder, and 2 T. parmesan cheese. Add one egg and one cup of milk, mix well. Slice up a bunch of yellow squash or whatever takes your fancy, dip the slices into the batter (which is thick and sticks really good), and lay them out in a large frying pan with piping hot oil. Watch these, they cook quickly, and retain heat well, so don't burn your mouth. You'll be drooling and it'll be hard to wait, but patience is better than a blister on the roof of your mouth.
After you're full and the leftovers are cooled down, they can be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge for a couple of days. The really sweet thing about this whole deal is that your chickens will be happy to help you eat the leftovers, and you can use a few pieces in traps for critter bait. You're happy, the chickens are happy, and the critter gets a really tasty last meal.
And if you'd rather not have to go through all the trouble, you can sprinkle a little garlic powder on the chicken skins you peel off of your chicken leg quarters before you cook them (being how you're health-conscious), and that's just as enticing to a wandering critter as anything else you'll put out. Save your dog food for the dog and peanut butter for cookies.
I should probably put a little disclaimer up. The critters you catch might be cute. Don't fall for it! Bear in mind that feral cats (and even tame ones) can scratch and bite (I've had
Cat Scratch Disease, very unpleasant), and that everything you catch in your trap could also be infected with
Rabies. According to that article, "Rabies is a virus that in the U.S. is usually transmitted by a bite from a wild infected animal, such as a bat, raccoon, skunk, or fox. If a bite from a rabid animal goes untreated and an infection develops, it is almost always fatal," so please be careful out there. And keep those chickens safe! Once you've been through the shock and anger of finding little chickie eyeballs and pieces of toes laying about, you'll get into the sport of being an excellent chicken herder and never letting it happen again.
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Comments (5)
you probably are not a fan of the sci-fi book genre, and even less likely familiar with works of authors of the "Golden Age" of sci-fi books. if i'm not mistaken, it was 1945 till 1950s-1960s. many great sci-fi books were written back then.
an author named Henry Kuttler wrote a series of books and short novels. many of the short novels were concentrated around a wacky family, living somewhere in the mountains, disfigured by radiation but at the same time the radioon provided them with extraordinary gifts, making them much different than ordinary folks.
one of the main character of majority of short novels, John Gallegher (member of the family), mentions in one of the noves his uncle, who was gifted with mental ability to hypnotize other living creatures and make them do whatever he wanted. unfortunately, the uncle was very lazy, lived in a regular house with porch in the wooden wilderness, spending his time in his favorite rocking chair, and whenever he got hungry, he mesmerized a bunch of racoons, made them prepare a cauldron and fire underneath it, and skin themselfs on their own and jump into the cauldron for a reportedly delicious soup. (that's one of the highest levels of being lazy i have ever heard of; even *I* get up from my chair many times a day)
i'm mentioning this because the government may provide funding to anyone who tackles the critter problem, and if solution is as simple as the one used by Gallegher's uncle, it will be easy money
Wow. Random, but cool!
Any thoughts on the effectiveness of miso?
Around my hometown, the ducks/geese/sandpipers really like rice, white bread over whole wheat, and anything starchy (never tried chips). I'm not catching them though.
No, I would not try raccoon or possum. Yuck!
sounds interesting! i may pass this on to my cousins, who keep chickens in their yards and have a raccoon problem. is it safe to eat creatures from the woods?
@PeterATL@xanga - Have never run across that story, but it sounds 'old world', like something my dad would have grown up with from the old country. =) I'm otherwise a huge sci-fi fan, have another blog at http://bluejacky.xanga.com
@matthewlau@xanga - I've noticed poultry are like kids, they love 'candy', which is anything with an easy starch. They will grow lethargic and mean if that's all they eat, so a variety of greens and grains and wildlife (bugs, tiny critters, or dog food and meat scraps) make for healthier birds. My chickens love pasta for a treat, I'm sure miso would be a good treat for passing fowl, as long as they don't fill up on it and not eat anything else. (I actually get a world poultry magazine that gets into healthy digestion and everything, kinda fascinating.)
@niceBrice@xanga - I'm with you. I have an old recipe book that my dad's mom gave my mom when they got married, and there is a section in there about how to cook possum and snapping turtles and stuff, and yeah, there is no way...
@black_lie@xanga - We eat squirrels and rabbits and stuff in season, but I'm getting really careful about that because I have neighbors who put out poisons or leave things out that would wind up in the food chain, and I no longer feel comfortable eating local wildlife. You never know who might treat a yard or field with some kind of pesticide (weed and/or bug), and you never know what the critter you want to try has eaten. Maybe I'm paranoid, but the further away you live from society, I would think the healthier the animal would be. 100 years ago people lived on local wildlife to supplement their diets and there was no problem with it. Things have really changed.