Animal Revolt

   A coyote ate two more keets today. (A keet is a guinea fowl). They havn't told me how they found out, but I think my dad just counted them and there wasn't 21. We havn't actually seen anymore coyotes since last time, and we think its becase my dad scared them away with the rifle (he didn't hit them, though)

   A couple days ago, our neighbor's cow got into our property, while our own cows escaped. We let our cows out every morning and afternoon to another area, since they have absolutely no grass were they usualy are. The new area is bordered with electrical strings. One time, my dad forgot to turn on the electricity, so the cows ran out. it took forever to get them back in. A day later or so, a neighbor's cow got into the land around our house. He got in becase the fence over the creek is loose. We had to drive the cow to the other side of the fence through the gate. 

   The hens are running everywhere. Sometimes it means they laid an egg, and sometimes it means they are trying to annoy us. By the way, if you see the picture of the keets on the  entry called COYOTE, you'll see there is a yellow bird. That is a rooster. It crows every morning. At first, the cock-a-doodle-doo sounded ridiculous, like a deranged frog trying to sing. Eventually, he got better at it.

Coyote

   My dad's sighted a coyote twice so far: once this morning, and once some days ago. The first time my mom was having coffee outside with my dad. We keep some guinea fowl

beside the house, and these are really free range, since the door to their house is always open. Anyway, my parents were outside, when the guinea fowl started shrieking like they always do, my dad started yelling like the abominable snowman, my mom almost dropped her coffee, and there was general mayhem. The reason? There, among the birds, was a big ugly coyote. He had crept up, unseen, and was now chasing a lone fowl he had singled out. The bird was so surprised, and the coyote so fast, it didn't have the time to fly up a tree like they do when we chase them. Pretty soon, the coyote was running off with prey clamped within its teeth.

   The second time wasn't so exiting. The coyote was coming for his breakfast when he saw my dad holding his rifle. The coyote was bold but not dumb. When my dad started shooting, the coyote hightailed away. My dad isn't an excelent shot, and the coyote was far away, so my dad missed. At least this time it didn't kill anything (The 'it' I'm talking about is the coyote, not my dad).

TOO CLOSE TO NATURE

  We lost all our goats to coyotes except one, strawberry, who is really lonely.  Goats are social creatures, so it tried to make friends with the cows, that didn't work.  Everyday strawberry got closer and closer to our house. 

  Yesterday my mom called us for dinner, and it was a nice day, so we left the doors open.  In the middle of mashed potatoes, the goat stuck his head in the house, walked in, and made for the kitchen!

  As I mention before, the coyotes are the ones that killed the goats.  When we found the body of the last goat to die, it wasn't that far from the house, which made us realize just how close we were to the wild. Worse, we found half of the body, which means somenthing scared the coyotes away before they could get the rest.  Either something worse than coyotes or it was my dad.  My mom is a bit jittery.

Snake Attack

Look in the corner, maybe a rat snake.

      We put the broiler chicks outside in the pen where the bigger ones were, so we put those in another one that my dad built with my brother. Then yesterday my mom called my dad. We (my brothers, my dad and I) were going somewhere when she called. She said a snake was in the pen. When we got home at eight, we saw the shape of a big ol' serpent curled up in the back of the small pen. We got a light and saw some chicken feet sticking out the viper's mouth. Dad got a stick and when he poked it, the snake started to throw up some naked chick.

      How it managed to remove the feathers I have no idea. My dad crushed its head and then beat it to death. We took some photos and investigated. Turns out it was a Texas rat snake, non-poisonous. We need to be careful.