Bobcat Tracks?

Update on Maude the fat hen: She is still with us and seems to be doing well. She has now survived both an Opossum and Bobcat attack.

Here are the pictures of the tracks that I found in the mud the next morning, I had walked all around in the pen the night before, trying to catch the chickens, so both the chickens and myself ruined most of the tracks and there were some tracks that had chicken prints on top of them. It was very sloppy and muddy that night, but it did freeze later on after I emptied the pen.

Several clawless toe tracks


Heal at the top and toes at the bottom, only 4 toes are actually visible here.

Other reasons that we feel this was a Bobcat is because of the speed at which it got into the dog kennel and out of it. I was in the house, my dog started barking, I heard the chain link rattle, then the chickens started screaming and I was out there very quickly without even taking the time to put on a coat. We really don't feel that a coon or coyote could have scaled that fence that quickly.

Also the size of the puncture wounds and the damage that was done to the hen in that span of time and the reaction of our horses, who were very spooked, they see coyotes, foxes and possums all the time.

'Possum

Since one of my friends emailed me to remind me that I only have a couple of hours left before tomorrow and I will be dishonest if I have to manipulate the time and date on this blog again, I thought that I had better hurry up and get today's post written. Actually, I am down to one hour left, but I can get 'er done.

I had started to post here tonight when Chloe my Miniature Schnauzer (and you thought that I couldn't spell), kept giving me grief and annoying me until I realized that I had forgotten to feed her today.

I went outside at about 10:30 to get her food out of the dog food barrel, when I heard my brave Livestock Guardian Dog "Angel" barking. Then I heard this distressful cry that I didn't recognize at first, I thought that it might be a tom cat or my own cat in trouble. Then I yelled at my husband like I always do, whether he deserves it or not.

I finally decided that it was one of my big Cornish hens in distress. We ran out to the small dog kennel where we keep the Cornish hens, they have a nice dog house to sleep in because they are too heavy to roost up high.

We had our handy little Black & Decker Rechargeable Spotlight that we bought ourselves for Christmas with us and discovered that there was more than just Chickens in the dog house, a 'possum was with them and I don't think he was just trying to stay warm. My dear husband held the light on him while I ran back into the house to get my rifle.

When I returned, the Chickens had left the dog house to seek help from my husband but the opossum was still in there. I handed my darling husband the rifle and I took the spotlight while he shot the opossum and a hole in the dog house. It didn't kill the dirty devil but did mortal damage and he wandered off in a hurry.

We came back to the house and my precious husband went to bed, then said, "I hope I didn't shoot a hole in the big water tank." I considered this and decided that someone ought to go check, so I did. I stood right where he had stood when he had fired the rifle and followed the bullet path with my very handy spotlight and sure enough that water trough was right in the path, we had made sure that there were no other animals behind where we were shooting but hadn't thought about that trough. I checked for trickling water but didn't see any. I guess we will know for sure tomorrow morning.

And in case you are wondering why my LGD didn't take care of this problem for us, the hens were in a pen that she couldn't get into and she did just what she was suppose to do, she raised a ruckus. GOOD DOG!