Water traps revisited

As every one knows, Mice and Rats are a scourge where ever they are found. If they are not controlled they soon find ways to get in the house and cause all sorts of problems, such as having to wash all the silver ware because a mouse has left his calling card in the fork drawer.

Here in the Desert, one of the really serious problems are Pack Rats. We have three separate species here, none are desirable. Our attic was a favorite of them. The rock walls are easy to climb and there are numerous little holes chewed into the wood where the rocks meets roof. They of course are stuffed with steel wool, but I am sure there are others that are not as easily visible.

My cure for the attic was a rather large industrial strength Victor electronic noise maker. I have heard that strobes are effective as well. The Victor seems to work quite well however. At first we could hear one for a while, but they soon decided that it was too noisy for comfortable living and have moved out.

I actually started actively trapping outside of the house to augment my hawk food. Mice make dandy little vitamin pills. I have discovered that Jessie, the Peregrine, also likes them, so trapping has gone into high gear. The funny part is that the Mouse breeding program seems to be well able to keep up with my inroads into their number. I am quite sure that I have trapped at least a hundred so far with no reduction in numbers.

I still have a number of Starlings that I trapped in winters past, but they of course are only a tidbit for a 31 oz Peregrine. My feeding program for Jessie consists of either a "spent breeder Quail"  or a 8 week old Quail one day, and a Starling and about five Mice the other. then one day of fasting sometime in the week.

Considering that Quail are running about $1.50 each, the savings are considerable. I have bucket traps set at the likely mouse runs around the house and in the Motor home. This of course means that any mouse getting any where close to the house, first has to resist the temptation of all that P'nut Butter. Considering the two cats that live here in the house have not caught a mouse since last year, not many can resist.

I have refined my trap a bit since starting, but it isn't all that necessary. I have used PVC to make a nice smooth roller.

Mice run along walls, so I have a ramp that makes it easy for them to get to the roller. I smear a light patch or two of P'nut butter on the ramp to get them interested, then pretty good gobs of it on the roller on all four sides, so that bait will always be present. The idea of course is to get them to walk out on the roller to get the food, and then all is left is to find out how good they are at log rolling. You also need about four or five inches of water in the bucket.

This one is in my hanger and at the corner of the garage door where they come in the hanger.

You can see the live trap beside it. I had a pack rat that was big enough to hold onto the edge and lick the bait off the bar, so I set a live trap with some apple on it and I had him within 3 hours of setting it.
This one is a bit smaller or dumber, whichever. There are also two Mice in there as well.

This is the nights take, from the back porch, the hanger, and the Motor home. This comes out to three days supplement for Jessie. Its worth it for the cost savings not to mention the hazard and damage that the Mice represent.

A empty sitting Motor Home or Fifth wheel represents a great place for Mice and Rats. Easy for them to get into and no one to cause them any distress. With a trap set in there one only needs to empty it every now and then, and maybe put a little newer bait on it. 

One can make the traps with something like a plastic coke bottle with a wire stuck through the middle of it so that it will roll smoothly. You just need to keep it close enough to the edge that the mice can crawl out to the bottle. For that an 1/8 "all thread " rod and a few nuts to keep it where you want it works pretty good. 

I have a lot of old 1 1/2 pvc here at the house, so I carve a plug for each end, drill a hole in the center, and run a piece of stiff wire down the center and span the center of the bucket. Then all you need is for a way for the mice to get up to the bait. I am using a ramp, but I bet a piece of cloth hung over the side would be enough. I just like to make it easy for them to die.

Last year I ran a "trap line" of about 18 snap traps to try to get the Motor Home and fifth wheel cleared of Mice and it was a lot more trouble. This way if there are 3 mice working an area, you are able to catch all of them. The traps only have to be re baited and the water changed every now and then. 

Yogi

Yogi has been with us for about three years. She has been a lot of fun. She has been a pleasure to handle, She has tolerated the clumsy cautious hands of hundreds of kids that she has met at various educational venues. She has willingly hunted with every one that was willing to take her out.

I decided last year to give Puddy to one of our falconers on the West side of the state. Rabbits were down to almost bare bones in this area. Karen, due to her medical condition could not withstand the rigors of hunting the rim rock where the Jacks live. Tami's new son was too young to handle that as well. I did not care for the complications that arise from hunting two hawks, so a reduction in ranks was in order.

Unfortunately Yogi has decided that she does not want to hunt Jack Rabbits on her own. Quite frankly I found this to be astounding. I have seen her make the first strike on four Jacks in one outing. It is true that she had help almost immediately from Puddy, but I never would have imagined that she would not close with Jacks on her own. She is perfectly willing to catch any and all Bunnies that we could come across. This is the right and logical choice for a bird that has grown up in the wild, but unfortunately I cannot make that concession. This is Jack Country, and even those are way down in population. So Karen and I began a search for a new owner for her.

We settled on Sarah Morrison.

Sarah has been a member of Oregon Falconers Assoc. since she was 14 years old. I have watched her and her mother attend every meet that the club has held. She has proved her devotion to the sport, as well as earning our respect. When we found that she might be interested in a new bird, we approached her about Yogi.

Sarah and her mother, Sandy arrived last week to pick her up.

We made an attempt to take Sarah's other Harris out for a Rabbit hunt, but the weather was quite "springy", totally different location from what he was used to along with the drastic change in elevation and Townsen's Ground Squirrels every where guaranteed that we were wasting out time.

We did find a road killed Jack however that was furnishing breakfast to a Raven. Sarah immediately wanted to stop. ( My kind of gal! ) She gutted it there along the road, and bagged every thing but the hind leg that the Raven had been feasting on. The leg and the organs were left there for the bird.

The next morning preparing for their departure, Sarah began cutting up the Rabbit. Frank, our white cat did his best to eat as much as he could before she got it put up.

It will take Yogi a bit to get the hang of hunting in trees. I hope that Sarah has as much fun with her as we have had.

  

The VW curse, or the consequences of a seemingly trivial act.

Things have been a bit slow here lately. The bone spur removal on my foot has left me with a lot of time to kill, and of course think. Some of that comes from getting older, although the really hard stuff is quite some time down the road. Still I am to the point in my reflection where I am remembering the embarrassing stuff. For the most part I have done pretty well and acted honorably with the exception of a few of the opposite sex that I wish I had treated better. I can only plead the callowness of youth, and hope for the best.

There are always major "turning points" such as the decision to not go to Army Helicopter training in 1963, that would have been totally life changing, not to mention possibly shortening, but I am not talking about the obvious ones. Just the little inconsequential day to day things that reach across the decades.

One such was the purchase of a shortened VW frame with a 36 horse motor in a box. Piddly cost of $100.00. That event has caused more money, trouble and change, one could say punishment than almost any other act of my life.

At the time I was a fairly new Oregon State Police Trooper in Klamath Falls, Oregon. One of the city Policemen offered the VW to me. It had been shortened by 18 inches. The perfect Dune buggy project. I bought it on the spot. Karen and I had been married about 6 years, and we were doing about as well as could be expected. Not great, but not bad either. I imagine that she felt that it was a waste of money, and before I could even blink, had found a 2 year old Appy mare for just the same amount of money. Like I had done she presented me with the act already accomplished. Checkmate!

We both had fun with our different projects, and I have to admit Dusty, the aforementioned horse, was pretty great and a lot of fun. Of course I am leaving out all the barns, feed, hay, trimming, shots, trailers, foals, tack,and odds and ends. The list is tedious any way. While I learned to weld while building the Dune Buggy.

I used the Dune Buggy for hunting, camping and all around fun. The damn thing would go just about anywhere. I could jump fallen trees with it after I put a skid plate on the bottom. One day while Squirrel hunting for hawk food, I decided to jump a ditch with it. I got over the ditch alright, but I twisted my back in the process. It wasn't bad enough to be serious at the time. However a few nights later while on patrol I had to help in the arrest of a drunk driver that bolted. I grabbed him, but my back was hurting badly enough that I could not wrestle with him. End result, a busted fist, and he spent the night in the hospital. Admitted for a sprained wrist. There was a bit of a dust up over that with the result that I was supposed to get three days off without pay. I had a supervisor much higher that wanted more, and I ended up quitting in disgust. Life is much too short to deal with assholes. It just wasn't worth it.

I took a job at a lumber mill on a temporary basis until a horseshoeing course would open up at Oregon State College. I had turned down three other state jobs in the process. I was pretty burned out.

Fifteen weeks later I was self employed. It wasn't all that bad. Of course Arab horses and their owners were the bane of my existence, but it was pretty good. Over all, nasty working conditions, lots of heavy sweaty work, but still not bad. The only hang up was winter. Nobody wanted horses shod in the winter, so I drove a School bus and worked at a towing company the rest of the time.

Karen had gone to town for me once to resupply and mistakenly bought 50 lbs of racing plates. We were both too busy to return them, so my welding hobby kicked in and I built "nick nacks" out of horse shoe racing plates. I tried to sell them, but apparently I thought too highly of my work, so in disgust,I started giving them away. One of the gals, (Terri) that I gave them to worked for the Superintendent of the Burlington Northern RR.

The only problem with my winter employment was that the kids were always sick, and of course they shared with me each time they got on the bus. They either coughed, sneezed or farted at the top step. I was always sick each winter. One day Terri called and asked me if I would like to have a job with the RR as a welder. I explained that I really didn't know how to weld, but she assured me that they would teach me. Thirty years later I retired from that job.

We sold the house that we bought during that period, and bought a place here in the High Desert of Oregon, bringing two horses with us. I gave the Dune Buggy away for scrap when we left.

One of the two Tennessee Walker horses that we had was a pain in the butt to catch. We finally sold him to a horse trader, leaving a 6 foot at the withers gelding that is still a kid in his mind. I finally talked Karen into letting me give him away to a friend in Klamath. Walkers are about as much in demand here as rubber crutches. Hay at this point is about $200.00 a ton. He needed 5 tons a year for feed. His main function these last few years has been fertilizer manufacturing.

So, I hope that I am finally free of the VW curse. It has been expensive, but it has been a plus as well.

Indirectly the VW caused me to quit the State Police. I could have retired at 50 years old, but would I have retained my "sweet" personality with 25 years of dealing with the assholes and dregs of humanity? I doubt it. It took me three years to overcome my personal PTSD of being a cop. At the same time it positioned me to work for the RR in a job that I really enjoyed. Giving me a retirement that was comparable to the one that I left behind on the State.

All in all it is very interesting to see how things are linked to that one day, and that one urge. I wonder how it would have turned out, if I had declined the urge to buy it?    

Working for nothing!

 I am just about done. The only thing left is to soften the skin. This to me is one of the harder parts of tanning. Of course fleshing is the actual hardest part. The entire episode was a learning experience anyway.

I decided to find out if animals were easier to skin after they had cooled down. My theory being that the fat that is so hard to remove from the skin would stay with the body rather than on the skin. I also thought that there was a possibility that using an air hose to blow up the critter would then allow the skin to actually separate from the flesh.  This I found to be untrue, however it will compress the bladder enough that you can get a urine sample without even trying. The last experiment was to see if the fleshing was easier if the skin was a bit dryer. The fur buyers like to have the skins coated in Boraxo after fleshing. This drys the skin out until it sounds like newspaper when shook.

 I asked the only expert that I know. A relative of the guy's at the Ranch. The only problem is, since he is a hard core desert rancher, he is not inclined to be lazy and put anything off, he didn't know. Well, after careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that "There is no good chain gang", or a better way to do this stuff other than that already in practice. Sigh!

The skinning wasn't all that big of a deal. It would have been better if I had done it the first evening, but if there is one thing that I have, it is time, and answering questions is a good thing anyway. I have long ago stopped being surprised at being wrong on occasion. Its good for your humility. Hell nobody likes to be around anyone who is perfect. Of course I could be over qualified on the less than perfect part.

After getting it skinned I covered it up in Boraxo and left it until the next day to start fleshing.

Of course there were some really tough spots around the head. The layers of meat there just will not succumb to a fleshing knife. Using a razor was bound to create some thin sports. No biggie, I have sewn up mistakes and bullet holes before.

After it was as good as I could get it, I mixed the brine to pickle the skin. It consists of 4 oz of pickling acid and two pounds of salt to two gallons of water. You let it soak for 24 hours stirring it occasionally.

After 24 hours the white color shows that it is done. You then rinse it out, and put it in a bath of one gallon of water with a cup of baking soda to stop the pickling acid. It is then put on a stretcher and partially dried. Then about a cup of "Liqui-tan" rubbed into the flesh side of the hide, rolled up fur side out, and left overnight.

Then of course a rinse and shampoo to get all the stuff out, and the hair clean. Now I will have to soften the skin as it dries over the rest of the time that it takes to fully dry.

As I said earlier, I don't have any problem working for free, and he will be worth more than $25.00 to me.

Jessie and Yogi seem to think that Badger tastes a lot better than Coyote. There just isn't much meat on them, and no fat at all on this one. Hard doings in this desert this year for sure. I only got about 11 meals off the guy. We have done our share however, we are using everything except the growl.

The hide has dried enough to begin the process of "breaking" the hide. I was surprised to find how thin the skin on their belly is. It is almost translucent. Here is the new guy beside one that I have had since the 70's.

In the early 70"s, a new arrival in Oregon, I killed this Badger at some cliffs where I was looking at Prairie Falcons. I never really thought about it, but it was apparently just a youngster. A fella I knew tanned the hide for me. I have actually seen Badgers that were a bit bigger than the new one.

Here is the finished product. The small one was taken in the spring. This one has his full winter coat. I like him much more than the $25. bucks the fur buyer offered.

Winter seems to have finally arrived here. We have had it pretty easy so far. We got 4.5 inches of snow a couple of days ago. (rare here) and this morning it was 10.5 degrees below zero.

What is it about Christmas??

The first year we moved here, a Badger got into the Chicken pen on Christmas Eve and killed 17 of my Chickens. His mistake was that he decided that the Chicken house was such a great supermarket, that he decided to dig a burrow in there to be near his food source.

As you are aware, I have decided to stop hunting with the Hawks this year, and the area is so drought stricken, along with several other factors, that there is little to hunt other than Ducks. I had hoped to be able to take up the slack with my predator hunting. Even they are so reduced in population that I have yet to be able to call anything in at all. So mainly I am giving the Malheur public library a workout with my Kindle.

Karen had just gotten back from getting the mail at Burns Jct, and I was looking on the computer for a distraction of any kind. Betsy, the paranoid, began barking. I looked to Karen to see if the driveway alarm had gone off, but she was just as puzzled as I. I looked out the parking area windows and could find nothing there. I yelled at Betsy, but she refused to stop. Then I heard Yogi screaming her defiance. A quick check revealed a Badger circling around the weathering area trying to find a way inside, with Yogi daring him to come on in. Every body is braver on the other side of a fence.

A quick trip to the gun closet and the .17 HMR and I went out to meet our visitor. He saw me and in true Badger form began advancing towards me. Well that was a mistake!

The .17 is the perfect weapon for Badgers. The hole in his chest is not even visible, not even a blood spot, but he dropped in his tracks. The little .17 grain bullet obviously blew his heart to pieces. He never knew what hit him.

Josie is the bravest of the bunch. Brick stayed well back until he could be sure that it was safe.

Not my normal hunting attire, and it looks as though I could have pulled my sweats up a bit as well.
I am sure glad that he didn't find the Chickens first. I would have never found him until after the fact.

Now I get to skin him. I have to admit that is going to be interesting. I will need to skin his feet out and then there is the musk gland that should make it interesting.

Saturday:

I decided to experiment with this one. Always before I have skinned the critters as soon as I could, always the same day. To sell a hide it must be "fleshed", stretched and dried. A fleshing knife is similar to a draw knife used to peel bark off trees, only it is dull. Of course when a hide is fresh, the fat is a bit of a pain to get off, requiring a fair amount of exercise. Of course with anything one can over do it as well, generally when you least expect or need it. I prefer to "work smart", or as my dear ole dad used to say, Lazy.

I have tried in the past using an air hose to separate the skin from the critter. The result was no different from one not blown up as far as I can tell. I decided that I would let the critter cool overnight, pump him up with the air hose and see if things were better. I may as well admit I was stalling because I didn't really want to skin this suckers feet down to the nails. Of course stalling wasn't going to make it go away, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I turned the heat on in the shop this morning so that I could at least be comfortable. While I was waiting for it to heat up in the shop, I realized that the weather was better than it would be in the afternoon and I needed to fix some fence down in the lower pasture. I  had thought that I would skin the Badger then fix the fence. Well, I decided that since I was going to need Karen to help me, I had better put off the skinning until we finished the fence.

I gathered every thing up in the quad, and even though we had about forty feet to stand up, It didn't take nearly as long as I had thought. So I put every thing up and came in the house to warm up. Then Karen asked me what a Badger was worth on the market. I did a computer check and couldn't find much information. I finally decided to call the place that I sold my stuff last year, and found that $25.00 was about all I could expect.  Wellllll, apparently there was no need to stall any longer. I didn't need to skin feet for a critter that was going to hang on MY wall. It feels strange to say it, but 25 bucks ain't worth the trouble. I will work for free, but not cheap.

I got all set up, strung out the air hose and pumped him up. Full of air with his stubby legs he could have passed for the way that he looked when he was trying to get in the weathering area with the hawks. No longer restrained with having to please someone else, I cut his hide right above the ankles, and proceeded on with it.

Well I can tell you that leaving a Badger to cool out does not make the skinning process any easier. Neither does blowing them up with the air hose. Fleshing is just as hard warm or cold. I did however somehow miss the Mustelidae glands, because he was not even as stinky as a Coyote. One out of three isn't that bad.

Since this entire thing is for my benefit, I decided to see if rolling the skin in Borax overnight will make the fleshing process any easier. Still stalling I guess. I will let you know in the next post.

Jasper update

I am sure that most of you remember Jasper, a special little Kestrel that Tami Flew as her first raptor. Tami of course is our neighbor and my last apprentice. Jasper was caught in a family group that had not dispersed. He consequently had no idea of what he could catch and what he could not. To me the perfect timing for a future falconry bird.

We entered him to Starlings, which were as big as he was. He had no idea that Starlings were anything  other than normal prey for a Kestrel.

 He taught Tami a lot about raptors and how to teach them to hunt. We had a good season with him and for his reward, released him here at the house.

He has spent the fall and winters here at the house. The first year he stayed in one of the windsocks, which gave him shelter, but left him out in the wind. I built a Kestrel box in the hopes that he would pick up a female in the spring and raise a bunch of little Jaspers.

I saw him the first spring with a female and he showed her the box. She took one look around and declined. They ended up going over to the ranch and nesting in the trees.

His female for whatever reason, died just as the youngsters began flying. There were two of them, and Tami eventually rescued them and tame hacked them back to the wild. One of the males actually spent nights on her back porch for most of the winter.I believe that he is still there, but has moved into the Barn.

Jasper came back over to our place and again spent the fall and winter here. For the most part I just kept an eye on him. When we started getting some really serious weather and cold, he began hunting closer to the house. I decided to see if he remembered me, and waved a Starling at him and threw it in the parking lot. He wasted no time in swooping down and carrying it off to a spot to eat. When I judged that he was having trouble finding food, I would feed him. He always responded.

This last spring he again paired with a female and they raised a clutch of young over at the ranch. As the youngsters got bigger and more demanding, he began to spend a lot of the day here at his old spots. When the young ones finally dispersed, he came home to stay. This time he started using the Kestrel box to sleep in at night.

The windsocks are his major hunting perch's. He also hunts from the chicken house and telephone line over the horse corral. He is hunting birds when he uses them.

I went out to do the evening chores this evening, and could hear a strange sound coming from the Pigeon house. I identified the sound as I got closer. Kestrel! I opened the door and there was Jasper trying to get out of the screened window. I held the door open and called his name. He saw the open door and flew out landing on the telephone wire. On the floor was a Starling with no head. I picked it up and walked out in the open end of the runway, called his name and waved, the threw the Starling out on the ground. He took off, snatched it up and took it to a comfortable perch to eat it.

Apparently he either saw a Starling go into the Pigeon door ( 8x10 ) of chased one into there. Earlier this year I had to let him out of the Chicken house after he went in chasing Sparrows. This is his third winter here. I find it amusing that he still remembers our association. I have never tried to make him dependent, but if he shows any signs that he is having trouble getting food, he know where I live.

Further avian flu information.

In my last post I told you that I was stopping my hunting activities due to Avian flu. One cannot help but second guess decisions like that, but apparently it was the right decision. I received this email from North American Falconers Association.

Avian Influenza Alert!!!! Level two
1 message
NAFA President <nafapresident@n­a­f­a.com> Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 5:02 PM
Reply­To: nafapresident@n­a­f­a.com
To: lcottrell1020@gmail.com
Dear Larry
Earlier this week I informed you of an Avian Influenza outbreak in northern
Washington. This same virus has now been found in a flock of domestic guinea fowl
in southern Oregon. These fowl were exposed to migratory waterfowl in a local marsh.
I received a call today from Dr. Pat Redig today and the autopsies on the dead
falcons from northern Washington have shown this to be a very contagious and
deadly form of Avian Influenza. Dr. Redig recommends a temporary break from
waterfowl hunting be taken by all falconers hunting in the Pacific Flyway at least until
more information is available.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/animal_health/2014/SA_H5N8_Oregon.pdf
If you chose to continue hunting ducks with your falcons and goshawks, I would be
very cautious about letting multiple birds eat the same duck. The duck can appear
perfectly healthy, and freezing will not kill the virus. Also, be cautious of using the
same glove with multiple birds creating blood and saliva exchange.

Jessie seems to be happy with the decision, she has been fed two days in a row. That hasn't happened for a long time.