The ol' homestead

Attack of the ....... bobcat! (and beware graphic butcher pictures)

 Well, I have lost a couple more hens this last 2 weeks and was wondering if it was a coyote or another bobcat and today we found out which it is. The girls heard the hens having a fit right outside.Big Miss looked out the window, seen what it was and grabbed the camera as she ran out the door. They screamed at it to scare it off and was able to snap a picture (although somewhat blurry) of it on its rampage. The bobcat grabbed a hen and took it as far as the edge of woods but Rosie started to chase and so he dropped her. She was by then mortally wounded and I was not going to prolong her suffering out of selfishness. I HATE to put animals down but Randy was yet not home and so I had to hunt up the ax. As homesteaders we all know the risks and the trials of having stock and attacks and injuries on them are always a reality. It is the responsible and humane thing to be able to think clearly -even though your heart may be in turmoil. Now let me tell you, if I am going to chop the head off of perfectly good young hen, then I can guarantee it will not be for not and so once the deed was done I was off to boil water for scalding. The girls were trying to back up at this point but with a little coaxing, Big Miss hung in there and was trying her best not to throw her guts up get squeemish. Then she calmed a bit and she did just fine and I don't doubt her ability to do it by herself if the need ever arises in the future. She assures me it will only ever be for life or limb.... and I remind her that this is only because she is not hungry and were it not for the fact we can go and easily purchase chicken at the grocer, that we (homesteaders) do not have Sunday chicken dinner of the past. College Son calls in the midst of it all and implores to me that we have money to go to the grocer to buy chicken and sounds relieved to not be present -as if I would insist HIS help, and I assure him that this young tender FREE RANGE meat is better than anything that I could ever find at the grocer! To his relief I told him it would all be at and end before he gets home and I have a feeling he will not be wanting leftover chicken tonight. Randy arrived before nightfall and took the 12 guage with him in the direction the cat was running but last time it took us months to be able to kill that last bobcat and we lost all but 1 of our hens in the process. I am not willing to feed that thing on a regular basis and so the hens will be confined to the coop and the small run until we come up with a better plan. And so that is where we are at right now, it was not pleasant to dress out.... but necassary (and dinner was delicious by the way)

Can you see the bobcat?

At this point it looks like a skinned rabbit, the reason I decided to take the skin off rather than leave it on is our own preference but you could leave it on and a lot do.

I am pretty sure of one thing...Dressing out that chicken is going to be easy compared to finding that bobcat !

good for you - and thanks for the pictures

09:23, Saturday, March 1, 2008 .. Posted by Anonymous

This is my 1st visit to your site and I wanted to say thanks for the pictures of how you dress out the birds. I haven't gotten chickens yet, but am studying... and I know this will be a part of it all. We have big cats, coyotes, bears, badgers, et all, as well. One thing that bothered me was the AX! We happened on an injured rabbit (probably from our own cat) when we first moved to the country- and in trying to be humane - we hunted down the ax and tried to end it's misery. Unfortunately we had a few near misses first. It was a HORRIBLE experience, and I will not try to use the ax again. I don't know how I'll get around that when I've got birds to butcher - but your experience is encouraging, so thank you.
Illoura