…not as right as usual.
The only scavengers who showed up to the feast were ravens. The corpse of my erstwhile chicken feed thief dwindled rapidly over the course of the afternoon, and no scavengers ever came in sight but ravens. Who did, in fact, walk around quite a lot. So that happened. In fact given that there’s not a single frame (of the lots of frames recorded) showing multiple ravens, it may have been the same one or at least members of the same mated pair.
And then this morning, by the timestamps less than half an hour before I came to collect the camera, this happened…
…and that was the end of that.
Huh. I wonder why a different spot was more desirable.
Speaking of scavengers… Why not feed the squirrels to the chickens? I’ve seen how they fight over a mouse, and I can imagine a smallish flock would give a squirrel similar treatment as the Crows/Ravens would. The extra protein wouldn’t hurt either.
Poetic justice for the feed-thieves!
Tried that with packrats. They’ll eat an occasional mouse but quickly lose interest in anything bigger.
Can you feed them to LB? Am I showing my ignorance again? My dog chases and eats cottontails.
I dunno. Maybe. If I gave LB a cottontail he’d probably eat it. Not sure about squirrel, but it’s possibly not a bad idea. I never think about feeding him whole small game, though he has certainly eaten enough of it.
Bones. Smaller than chicken bones. Unless, of course, you’re trying to get rid of LB. Or are prepared to give mouth-to-mouth as you try to clear his throat…
C’mon. I have no idea how many rabbits that dog has eaten and they haven’t harmed him yet. I’m much more worried about intestinal parasites than bones. Coyotes live on rats, rabbits and squirrels and I’ve never seen one choke to death.
As I said before get your skillet out, them squirrels are good eatin’. Two or three with make a meal for you and LB.
Will not with. 😛
Where did the big problem with bones come from? Admittedly, this is the first dog I’ve ever owned. However, with all the rabbits, dead baby crows, wild turkey bits and feathers, deer bones, lamb bones, beef bones, and one jack rabbit eaten that I know of, he shows no ill effects. Oh, and the remainder of a dead ground squirrel that one of the cats killed and ate until she was full. The only things that don’t appear to be digested are grass and hair/fur.
It’s been a year of a diet like this. The dog is happy and healthy. What’s the problem?
I may regret posting this, I know.
Bones are a especially a problem for dogs when cooked – the bones, not the dogs.
The cooking process makes bones brittle and they splinter into sharp shards. Raw bones are much less of a problem in this regard, they tend to be somewhat flexible and chewy, for some values of jaw strength.