Greywings Posted April 3, 2017 Share Posted April 3, 2017 Kane is rockin' that Mowhak! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 4, 2017 Author Share Posted April 4, 2017 That was her "I am afraid and this is overwhelming" look. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 9, 2017 Author Share Posted April 9, 2017 Wow, we have a new animal living with us, his name is Mickey as in mouse. I expected it with all the food the birds toss but this little guy is not interested in that food, he wants the fresh apples and potatoes. He isn't a fan of oranges I have noticed. Everyone keeps telling us to get a cat, umm we have a cat! A cat who obviously isn't earning her keep, but a cat none the less. I was contacted Friday about a Quaker and then was contacted yesterday about the other guy I spoke about before we moved. She was trying to make it work but hasn't been able to. Her and her husband are going to come out, meet us and make their decision. I love that because it shows they really do care about Gringo and want to be sure where he is going. He is having some behavior issues being very attached to her husband. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kya Posted April 9, 2017 Share Posted April 9, 2017 We live in a wooded area, so I know all about mice. We have two outdoor cats, one who is too lazy to move more than 5 feet from the food bowl, and one that is such a good huntress that we cannot have any small wildlife in our yard without it being in danger. Last year, she had kittens (before we realized she was old enough to have spayed) and we came home one day to find that she had added 3 moles to her kitten pile. They were dead, so I'm not sure if she was offering them up as food or just thought she might nurse them back to life. Yesterday, she killed a squirrel, and it really upset me. It isn't the first one, and won't be the last, but I know there are babies all up in our trees and I worried myself sick all day over it. I don't have to say this, but we do not have any mice... I am having a hard time dealing with the fact that we are no longer able to put out our bird feeders, and the squirrels really upset me, so we are considering putting her in the witness relocation program at my daughter's farm. I am way too sensitive for this. She belongs on a farm. Of course, that still leaves us to deal with the feral cats in the area, but I've never seen one stalk and kill like she does. Ever. Quakers are the cutest things, but I think from what I have heard, a lot of them have attitude problems, especially with bonding. They are illegal to own in the state I live in, so I have never had one. They seem to be loaded with personality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbersmom Posted April 9, 2017 Share Posted April 9, 2017 Have you tried putting a bell on a collar around her neck? That's the universal solution for cats who are hunters. It gives the prey a bit of warning, so if they are healthy they have a chance of escape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 10, 2017 Author Share Posted April 10, 2017 The bell is what I was going to suggest! We have a few feral cats here, they don't come close to the house and of course I started feeding them. I set my live trap for Mickey Saturday but still no luck in catching him, he went around the trap that I put peanut butter in and to the apple in the bin :-(. I am now infested with fruit flies because I thought if I left the apple there he would come back and have to go through the trap. This isn't a stupid mouse or a hungry one for that matter. Pat said he should be easy to catch since he will be so fat from eating all of our food. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 11, 2017 Author Share Posted April 11, 2017 Caught Mickey! Set him free in the woods. He was a cutie. (Well as cute as a mouse in your house can be anyway) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 12, 2017 Author Share Posted April 12, 2017 In the process of building a shed for the mower and for all of my tools (which right now are in every closet of the house). After that we have to do a fence for the dogs because Jake is an escape artist and can actually undo locks and open doors. THEN we start on the flights again. lol Even if we just get one up close and secure until we can build the real deal for them they will be happy! Carriers to and fro but it will be worth it for them. I just love my babies and love how much they are loving it here and they have not even see half of it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 12, 2017 Author Share Posted April 12, 2017 After 3 years with my same phone I still don't know how to work all the features and this has never bothered me before until today. I wish I knew how to screen shot a text my husband sent me today. I laughed so hard that I had tears coming out of my eye balls. I am going to try and paint this picture for you. I will preface this by saying he hates snakes. He is a manly man until he sees one... Moving out here our little push mower just doesn't cut it so one of the first things he bought was a VERY expensive Zero Turn mower. He has babied this thing and washes it and wraps it up in what we dubbed a condom to protect it from the rain. This shop/shed that is being built is for his mower, the area for the mower is already walled and has a roof so he parks it in there now. He was just so excited to be able to hop on it and mow, not unwrap it and fold the plastic and move things to hold the plastic down while he mows then clean and cover when he is done. I was happy for him that he had his lean-to built. This afternoon he got home early and decided he would start our burn pile and started moving branches around that we had just cut and dropped. (nope, no snake yet. Wait for it, lol) He did this so quickly he decided he would then pick up the dog poop and weed eat the back yard we made. (nope, still no snake) He got all of that cleaned in record time as well so still looking for stuff to do, he saw some higher grass areas. Now keep in mind he spend ALL of last Friday mowing this yard so these few little "high" grass areas are just his excuse to ride his mower again. He saunters to the bedroom of his mower and hops on, starts it up but what is this? I will not go forward. He looks down the side and it has a flat tire. Okay, not a problem he can air it up. He spins in the seat to look at the other tire and wow, it is flat too. Now this mower is still running and looks back down at the tire only to see a snake coming right for him. As he tells this story the snake is very close but I know him enough that it is a good 10 ft away. Panic consumes him as this snake gets under the mower, his first thought is to drive away. Okay, he has 2 flat tires and it isn't budging but that doesn't stop him from continuing to give it all the power he can while rocking back and forth to get it moving. Do we all see what is coming yet? He rocked so hard the tire left the rim on his little baby who now is in nature because he did mange to ease it out some. Snake still under the mower, he runs for his one handle post hole digger to "kill" this 5' snake, but first it is a good snake or a bad snake, he needs to find out so having no jack he gets cinder blocks and a pole and is going to lift the mower so he can look. In his excitement he forgets he is the only one home so as he stands there with the mower in the air it hits him that he is pretty much stuck, there is no one to put the block under the mower so he sets it back down and gets his one sided post hole digger and starts shoving it under the mower to scare this snake out, hitting the blade, scratching the paint etc. To no avail, the snake will not come out or has already gone. But now since he doesn't know where it is he is scared to go back near his precious mower. He calls the company who he bought it from and tells them the story, they get a good a laugh and tell him they don't have anyone who travels to repair but if they did, his story would have earned top billing. What a mess!!!! All because of a snake minding his own business!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 21, 2017 Author Share Posted April 21, 2017 I have discovered something, all these days of me and Koko talking. "Hi Koko, what cha doing?" followed by her replying "Hi Koko", I have not been talking just to Koko, seems Bubba has picked this up as well. lol. I should have known it wasn't Koko replying because she isn't in the same area as Bubba but I am slow to catch on, what can I say. I also now have 2 birds that will say my name, Marley and Chulo! We let the greys out in their room, unsupervised, this includes Vincent. Haha, all went just fine except for some wall damage around the windows. Nothing casing can't cover I guess. They had fun and that is all that matters. Had Nati out as well, she needed her nails done so we trimmed those and then we were going to do her beak and realized we have not seen the dremmel. Hmm, I know we moved it here but what box? What room? Which closet? Had another snake encounter, this one was wrapped around the door handle of the only door unlocked when we walked outside. lol. This one was a rat snake trying to get to a bird nest that is on a light over the door. Despite Pat's slight panic, I just poked it in the side and asked him to move, which he did very nicely. The next day Pat spent over $100.00 on snake away to spread around the house and pond. lol He said if there was any left, he was going to spread it around the bed as well so he could sleep in peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greywings Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 Does snake away actually work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acappella Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 I guess we'll find out here by following the continuing saga. lol I can't say I'd be thrilled with the snake population either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRSeedBurners Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 Interesting story regarding snakes: a lady from Queensland Australia on the conure group I follow posted a photo and story of her little conure. She was awakened at 2:30am by screams from her conure in the bird room. She ran in there to find her conure was completely wrapped by a carpet python that had gotten into the house and found its way to the bird. She was able to get the python off the bird in time and sat with it the rest of the night as it was pretty shaken from the ordeal. Can you imagine? She got a little bit of a flaming for destroying the python but her reasoning was that the python would no doubt be coming back for a re-visit knowing there is a meal waiting. Myself, I would have hacked the snake into a fine powder, run it up a flag pole, and set the flag pole on fire. But that's just me. Nobody eats my babies and gets away with it. A pic of the little sweety directly after the incident... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdhouse Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 I don't mind the type of snakes that live here. Small & harmless for the most part. A very small rattlesnake population that knows its place ...away from people. But you guys have some scary snakes. So I can't really say as I blame Pat at all. Hope the prevention works for everybody's sake. Don't the parrots have any problem w/them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kya Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Have you tried putting a bell on a collar around her neck? That's the universal solution for cats who are hunters. It gives the prey a bit of warning, so if they are healthy they have a chance of escape. We have...Twice...They always manage to disappear. I think it's because they are those "break away" collars and as much time as she spends in the trees, they are always getting caught on something. Then, they do their thing and break away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 24, 2017 Author Share Posted April 24, 2017 according to everyone out here, Snake Away does work. Right now the copper heads are out in force so I got the "respect" them (nature) lecture yesterday. I tend to just blow and go and not pay to much attention to my surroundings when I am outside. I really didn't believe them until I was asked to go get a piece of wood from our little pile. As I approached it, my brother in law yelled for me to stop. And he walked over and asked which piece of wood I would have grabbed so I pointed to one. Turns out the one I would have grabbed had about an 1 1/2" scorpion under it. They both already knew it was there because they had killed it but had to prove my carelessness to me. lol Since we don't have the flights up yet and don't have the security at the doors, the birds have not be outside but I would guess they wouldn't handle snakes very well. My birds are spoiled! Had them out of the cages yesterday, Vincent decided that Cotays cage was his new cage. He got in it and just pranced around, which under normal circumstances wouldn't bother me. This time though, Cotay was still inside her cage and not very happy that Vinn was there. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdhouse Posted April 25, 2017 Share Posted April 25, 2017 Ewww, ewww, ewwww!! Anything eat snakes & scorpions besides prey birds? Is there a safe natural predator that won't harm the fids, that you can invite to come settle at your place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greywings Posted April 26, 2017 Share Posted April 26, 2017 They are called Guinea Fowl https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/proxy.php%3Fimage%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fi1170.photobucket.com%252Falbums%252Fr540%252Fchipp89%252Fguineas.jpg%26hash%3D5e8f3b94fbcdfaed736c4cb9e68841a6&imgrefurl=http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/threads/367217/&h=640&w=640&tbnid=cjI7EFdBDDcTVM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=160&usg=__yY_XlA7FVgqOrHAW09nGph7bUbc=&vet=1&docid=t-2qXxaluemz_M&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX97WOqMPTAhUlyoMKHbEVCtYQ9QEIKzAA They also eat ticks, rats and mice. Tehy are not super brite, they flock call and will lay an egg even when perched above your head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdhouse Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 There we go. So then, for the record Lisa, if Pat says he's going out to pick up some chicks, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Okay? lol Great picture! But they aren't apt to be quite as effective if they can't be left to roam among the flights, though. They're not likely to be carrying anything to effect the parrots or vice versa are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdhouse Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 Did you happen to see these btw? They made their way to the main yahoo page today... https://www.yahoo.com/style/snake-hidden-photo-nearly-impossible-194236401.html I though this was easy to spot in a picture. Not necessarily so much in the real world. This was crazy, though. I'm usually really good at this & I couldn't find it w/o help. Then, I still had a pretty hard time ..."on paper" so to speak. That's scary!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 LOL, Pat has to build us a coop before he can bring his chicks home! I love the hens but have heard they are very loud and very stupid so not sure if we want to go that route. Thinking donkey. I am not sure why but snakes just don't bother me. We stocked the pond this week and went out there yesterday to look around and there was another snake sunning on a fallen tree in the pond, not sure how I spotted him but when I pointed him out to Pat he said "where this is one, there is another" and took off inside. He came back with his gun which just cracked me up. It is about that hard to spot them in person as in the pictures except seeing the texture difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbersmom Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 Snakes don't bother me either, which is easy to say since there aren't many poisonous ones in my area. My oldest son, on the other hand, will scream "like a girl" if he sees one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRSeedBurners Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 We had miniature donkeys. Never. Again. They murdered every beneficial plant on our property. They have the instinct to carefully dig a root grass out of the ground by pawing to consume every last bit essentially killing the whole plant. They also chewed the bark off the trees at donkey level killing several of our beautiful trees. This eventually lead to a pasture full of nothing but weeds and several dead trees which we are still fighting to this day 8 years after I shot the bastards. Just kidding - I didn't shoot them but the only thing that stopped me was my wife and the city ordinance about firing live munitions within city limits. You will love chickens, especially their eggs! We have Guineas now too. This is my third go-around with them. We usually end up getting rid of them because of their noise and/or because they are mean to the chickens. However we just had some city-idiots that are building a 100 story house overlooking our property so I'm thinking they will enjoy my roosters and my guineas and the piles of horse shit right beneath their kitchen windows!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murfchck Posted May 5, 2017 Author Share Posted May 5, 2017 So Scout has moved in with us. Wow, he is a little Quaker and very chirpy I guess you would call it. He is scared from the move. 3rd time in a year and that is all I know. He was actually found in Keller, Tx and was on the facebook 911 but no one ever claimed him so his foster home rehomed him. The person who adopted him is now moving to take care of a family member and will be living in a travel trailer which can't fit her animals so she asked me to take him in. She tried to find him a home but no one wanted this little fella so here he is. He can out scream the Too's which is no small feat. Very nippy also but it makes me laugh when he gets all mean and starts pecking at the cage at me. Such a bad ass he is, lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kya Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 Quakers are illegal in our state, but their little ferocious quirky personality certainly intrigues me. I have yet to hear anyone say "Oh, my Quaker is just a little sweetheart." But I sure have read some funny stories! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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