My mistake cost Ol' Brer Fox his life last night.

I let the chickens out to scratch around in their "patio" yard off the Gulag while watering out back yesterday afternoon. Gave them some goodies, dandelion and wild lettuce from the yard, some scratch. Got busy with watering the orchard across the creek, then dinner,etc. Chickens went in and went to bed in the coop as usual at sundown. I was in the house.

Along about 2300 hours, starting to watch a HOCKEY game, I heard noises out there by the coop. Windows are open at night for the cooling breezes, and my recliner seat is right next to the closest one to the coop.

Oh Scheidt. I knew just what was going on as it was at that moment I remembered I never shut the gate to the Gulag. Fudge, I jumped up, turned on spotlight in the back yard, ran out on deck and yelled, ran inside, grabbed pistola, forgot flashlight, remembered before I left deck I think, grabbed the light, stopped at the well house and grabbed some earmuffs from the shooting bag (semi climate controlled storage ), and ran out to the coop to see what was bothering the birds and if it was still there after all the hoopla. Sure as Moses had a beard, there's a fox, probably the same one that got a hen a couple of months back and got his pic taken by the game cam the next night snooping around for more.

Well, he made the mistake of not leaving while I was doing all that prep. The he had a chance to get by me as I was getting through the "patio" and headed toward the gate. Instead, he cornered himself between the fence and coop itself. Poor choice.

Many here know I don't mind the mice, ground squirrel, pack rat, rabbit, snake eaters around the place. Less trapping of vermin I need to do. But get after my chickens and you end up like Roy the badger did a couple of years back.

Reynard will not be bringing Kentucky (California?) Raw Chicken home to the kids anymore:




The trail cam from back at the end of May:



One hen is a bit beat up, but seems no worse for wear this morning. Was feeding with the others last I saw her.

You shot Roger’s pet!?!?

For shame!

Lol, Rog be Jonsen for valsdad now!

Roger's George bites nipples, not chickens.

Nice going there.

Gulag Life

Squalor and then a predator is trying to eat your face too

😃

Every now and then...justice!

good job!

Mine is not "squalor".......................like some of your rentals with corpses in chairs and scheidt.

Juniper posts, hardware cloth and 2x8 boards to keep the diggers out, 1" chicken wire to keep the hawks out, a Mennonite built hen house...........................


They ain't gonna find that down in the chicken 'hood.

This Gulag dang near be some uptown scheidt.

That was a fat, good looking fox!
What else has he been eating?

Nice looking grey.

Bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.......

What, leave the gate open on a night the window is open so I can hear stuff going on out there?

Or shoot that good?

The little green dot coming out of the Bodyguard works really well.

He had a chicken back at the end of May! Maybe he hasn't lost all that weight yet?

Might be eating the quail I chum up by feeding them most mornings. Loads of mice and kangaroo rats around here.

One thing's for sure, he's not getting any fatter now.

Nail him to a tree .

I took his tail and he's resting out back, over the fence on the BLM land, where the buzzards can get him. If the coyotes don't drag him off today or tonight.

Has to be some slow DNA fox material around there for it to wait for you to put on your bolo tie and zippered Florsheims.

Haha

Geno, did you get my pm last night?

flintlocke,

nothing came through this way, at least it's not in my PM lineup.

Kill a Kangaroo Rat around here and you will get more time than if you killed a person.

slip ons bro, no zippers here.

[img]https://cdn3.volusion.com/qxhdt.hzhwy/v/vspfiles/photos/261BK-2T.jpg?v-cache=1506006652[/img]

But yeah, I figured he really had a hankerin' for yard bird on the wing, or he would have skedaddled as soon as the spotlight back there lit up.

Waiting around for an old man to get set up is just plain dumb, kinda like what Toothless Freddy the tweaker would do out in the garage if a person flipped on the lights. Instead of jumping on his STOLEN bmx bike and hauling ass, Ol' Freddy still be looking for something to swipe to feed that addiction.

Different variety up here and no shortage of them in the sagebrush.

I guess they don't do so well in plowed fields.

I know he left out the part almost chitting himself that’s why I added it. Hell he probably brushed his teeth

Haha

Flashlight going all over the place like a hollywood premier at the chinese theater

Couple of bullet holes in the gulag roof and the fox twisted up in some wire, choking out and a cap popped into his brain pan for campfire cred.


😃😃

Whew! I thought someome screwed the pooch and we were going to have another town burned down by BLM.

Details G....

Pistola used was a ????? 44 Mag, 357 Mag, 40 SW, a plain Jane missionary 9mm or a true and lethal 22 LR?

😎

In all his confusion he grabbed a track and field starter pistol fired a shot realized it was starter pistol. So back inside the house he goes. Stops for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake (mmmm delicious) anyhow back to the room grabs a pistol, sees his cowboy hat puts it on. Walks past the bathroom catches glimpse in the mirror so he decides to do a couple impromptu quick draws. Back outside he goes, realizes it’s a little chilly back inside he goes gets a jacket on, back out he goes to investigate the ruckus in the ol hen house.

Nice shootin', Geno.

Bet that got the heart pumpin'.

Coyotes gotta eat too.

Nice!

Time to riot because FLM!

Last time a Chinee Fire Drill happened around here it was something like that, and funny as all get out.

I had gotten a moose and gave a leg bone to my next door neighbor for her dog. Mine got the other one - which I brought inside near dark. We have coastal brown bears...

She had given her dog the bone in her chain-link kennel. Along about midnight, there was a helluva racket over there. Year+ old cubs were trying to get at that bone, which had been left in the outdoor kennel when the dog came in. They were shaking the hell out of that chain link, trying to tear that fence down, the sow was moaning and bawling, raising hell trying to get her kids back in the woods, Cris was cutting loose with her air horn, her boyfriend was lighting up the area with camera flashes. The phone rang, and it was Cris: "I have bears trying to get in. Bring your gun!!!" OOOOOGGGAA! Flash Flash. OOOOGGAA! Hurry! OOOGGAAA!

I pulled some clothes on, grabbed my rifle, jumped in the truck (I wasn't going to run over there), and got there - all of 100 yards away, when 2 cars pulled in and 5 guys all with guns piled out.... She must have had all of us on speed dial!

The bears were gone by then.

2 days later I found the ground all torn up over my septic tank. I theorize those danged cubs could smell the moose blood I'd washed down the drain - or maybe they were just chiteating bears.

From an earlier post


.380 version.

Carry round, Barnes

Put little dot on critter, pull trigger.

Even Geno can do it.

Hope it didn't tell all of it's buddies where you lived.

Only thing I was worried about was the bastid charging me like a 5 ton elephant.

But, it did get my heart going as I like my chickens and I'm damn tired of chicken thieves. Going to have to put the .410 buy the door with a flashlight electrical taped to the barrel like my uncle did. Worked great when he came home from his linesman job at night and spied a bunny in the corn. Walk the rows, put light on bunny, pull trigger.

If I do that I won't have to worry about remembering the flashlight. I was just getting into the HOCKEY game too. Rough going, I been jonesin' for some ice action. No games since The Corona hit.

Going to put up a 3M hook on the wall by the door for the ear muffs. I can still hear dang good and want to keep it that way.

Well, so far, since putting up the Gulag a couple of years back, there's one less badger and one less fox. Maybe the coyotes learn by other's experience??


This one, or his relative:



turned into this one when it wouldn't leave the fence even with me shining that flashlight at it:



that one is not just sleeping.

Flashlights and shotguns? Isn't that cheating a bit?

"I might have heard, somewhere".....several decades ago, that snowshoe hare eyes glow bright pink when hit with a flashlight ray at night, and a scoped .22 rifle is easy stuff......

S, S, S.

Vultures had found him by dinner time for me. The fox is just out of the frame to the left over the barb wire fence. Birds just took the closest perches.

I'll go out in the morning to see if the fox is still there, or what's left of him. That badger I put out there was dragged off the next day, not by vultures.




Had a bit of smoke this afternoon too.

There is no "cheating" in an all out defense of the Gulag.

Do them hares taste better when taken at night? I think I may have heard that somewhere.

Ring a ding ding.

Put them shickens out there it was like a dinner bell for sure.

Just glad we don't have coastal brownies around here.

I'd have to buy a bigger pistola.

That fox musta been as dumb as the ones tryin to get in my chicken pen. I was on the tractor and had mowed the front yard which takes about a half hour. Came around the side of house and saw the red pacing the perimeter of the chicken pen. Stopped the tractor about 20 yds from it and drew my 3" Sp101 357 and dropped it with a 140 gr xpb to the base of the neck. Second one i dropped from the tractor this year trying to get at the chickens in broad daylight. Killed another one the other morning that was caught in a box trap baited with cantaloupe intended for the groundhog thats tryin to get into the garden enclosure.

Must be something about that chicken crack. Like free beer to an alky, or a fix to a junkie. Or a turbocharger to a motorhead!

Just gotta have it.

Weird you're getting two in broad daylight.

Not surprised about the cantaloupe though. Coyotes used to eat mine right as they were getting ready to pick. Wish I could have shot a coupla them.

Nice looking fox!

Friend lost 8 chickens in one night last week, not sure what it was, maybe dogs as all gone.

One time staying there walked out into back yard and a fox in backyard. Takes a bit of time to get rifle out of safe, Ammo out of locked container etc. had a shot at him but couldn’t find him in the grass, he was on his way when I could finally get to shoot at him. Our bloody gun laws...... another time got one of two dogs that had a fair bit of dingo in them, about a hundred yards from the house at about eight in the morning!

Our California laws aren't far behind. But at least I can carry a pistol, which is why mine was accessible that night. Stays in the pants I wear out, but I was already in my house clothes. If I lean a rifle/shotgun up behind the door, I have to remember to lock it in the box whenever we leave. If the bad guy gets it and uses it, I'm likely liable even thought it was stolen in a breaking and entering case.

Biggest problem here is with new construction. Get one inspector on sight and you are fuqed.

When I was in high school I worked summers on BIL farm. My buddy Keith Cooper was working at BIL brother's farm next door, so to speak.

One night a skunk got in the hen house, and Keith's boss got him up ( with Kieth's new .22 SA rifle), and they went out to get that skunk. Keith got it too.

And about a dozen chickens.

They were both in the dog house with the old lady....

The only better one I have involved one of Keith's classmates- Don P. Both were a year behind me in school.
Several years after Don graduated from HS, he was home visiting. His folks were off somewhere when a big flock of snow geese landed in a stubble field well beyond shotgun range of any cover.

Don found his .222 and a couple shells and crawled the fence line to as close as he could get. Knowing he would only get one shot, he picked out the biggest clump of white, figuring on getting 2 or more. and touched 'er off.

Never touched a feather.

Killed his old man's white pig dead.