Squirrels Need Heathcare too!

It hasn't been a good Fall for the squirrels in my neck of the woods. I can't remember seeing so many dead squirrels on the roads. Oh well, survival of the fittest.

-Dave
 
> Poison
Who wants that? And we have a productive resident Redtail Hawk nest at the outer western perimeter. I'd hate to poison them in the process.

You don't want to poison them. If they're nesting in your house they will go there to die. You don't want decomposing squirrel corpses in your attic!

-Dave
 
I hold the local record for most squirrels in one shot - 5

I had a 40' steel light pole laying out behind my warehouse - you know, one of those that's about 10" diameter at the bottom, tapering down to about 4" at the top. I walked out back door one day, and 5 squirrels that were playing back there ran inside the small end of the pole to hide. I walked back to the office, grabbed my Rossi 20ga. single shot, dropped in a low base 7 1/2 shot Federal round, stuck the barrel in the fat end, and pulled the trigger. I could hear some of the shot bouncing around inside the pole, and all 5 of them came rolling out.

Don't get shots like that very often.
 
I did the bucket 'o water trick a couple months ago. Was in the grocery line with a special squirrel mix and the lady in front of me turned to me and said it was so nice I was feeding the squirrels. Ended up with 20 over a couple weeks. My lot is just 1/3 acre.
 
I started a new season for recording live classical music yesterday. After the gig, I spoke to the leader of the ensemble, and he asked what I've been up to all summer, since we last hooked up at the last gig.
I thought for a second, and wondered about discussing the truth, rodent eradication, not being sure of his exact persuasions.
I bleeted it out, Ground Squirrel eradication, via pellet rifle.
As it turns out, his response was,... Well, Mike, I'm a vegan.
And my heart sank, thinking that I might have just outstepped the bounds that I had just wondered about.
His response was wonderful,... He totally understood my situation, and, the completely out of balance circumstance. He related a time that he spent in Hawaii, learning that culture, and, how they handled an out of control animal situation there (he includes hawaiian music as one of his specialties). He related his time spent hunting feral hogs there, with the locals that he was studying with, and, how thrilling that was. But, he never had any of the feast afterward, due to being a vegan.
He was born and raised here in SoCal, and, knows very well of the Ground Squirrel epidemic that w have going on. He gave me an attaboy, and, we parted ways until the next concert.
 
I love watching the tree squirrels scamper around, but I can see how they could over-run a neighborhood.

Last week I was a driving a block from my house, a squirrel being chased by another squirrel ran in front of my car.

I stopped like I always do. Low and behold, two more squirrels were following the first two, single file, like it was a procession or something. I had never seen four in a row before.

Then the lead squirrel turned around, and charged the other three. I could no see them in front of my car. I just drove on.

They were all alive and running around in the rearview mirror.
 
My fight is with Chipmunks. They burrow down pretty deep and have all sorts of areas cleared underground to hide if you try the old garden hose down the hole tricks. I've found the ONLY method I have is chasing them off. I pour about 1/2 bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce mixed with several cups of water down the hole. When the little suckers get their paws in the hot stuff, they try and lick it off. Dave's is SO HOT they have a heart attack. I can't use my 22LR on them as I live in a residential area. I won't poison them as it might kill a hawk or falcon. They are too fast for a Victor rat trap too!!!!
 
My fight is with Chipmunks. They burrow down pretty deep and have all sorts of areas cleared underground to hide if you try the old garden hose down the hole tricks. I've found the ONLY method I have is chasing them off. I pour about 1/2 bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce mixed with several cups of water down the hole. When the little suckers get their paws in the hot stuff, they try and lick it off. Dave's is SO HOT they have a heart attack. I can't use my 22LR on them as I live in a residential area. I won't poison them as it might kill a hawk or falcon. They are too fast for a Victor rat trap too!!!!


You should look into the exciting world of air guns. The new ones essentially sound like,.. sproing pfffft thump (the last one is the sound of success).
 
I had squirrels make a nest and chew up the fuel injection wires on my car,
chew up lawn furniture seat cushions...
 
Yeah, like I needed to read this,….

https://gizmodo.com/a-mans-love-of-squirrel-meat-might-have-given-him-a-hor-1829796797

snip 8< .....


A Rochester, New York, resident might have caught one of the most frightening brain diseases around in one of the strangest ways possible—eating squirrel meat contaminated with zombie-like proteins.

The man’s bizarre story was included in a preliminary report released earlier this month at IDWeek, the annual conference of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. His case was one of several detailed by doctors from Rochester Regional Health, a major hospital network in the city.


According to the report, the 61-year-old man had been admitted to a hospital at Rochester Regional with cognitive impairment, schizophrenia, and psychosis in 2015; he was also unable to walk under his own power. But there was nothing to be done. Five months after his symptoms began, he died. Judging by his brain scans and other tests, the man had likely come down with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a form of the rare and universally fatal neurodegenerative ailment.

CJD is one of several diseases that are caused by a kind of protein known as a prion. Prions exist naturally in the brain and are seemingly harmless to us. But when these proteins start to fold in ways they shouldn’t, they force other nearby prions to misfold too, creating a growing army that, over years or even decades, effectively cannibalizes the brain.
 
Sometimes, you've just got the touch!

OK,... rodent eradication efforts are paying off, and the numbers are down. Kind of boring,...
Dateline: Today
Sarge wanted to run out to the Reservation Casino for breakfast this morning at an admittedly great little cafe. Off we roll. Its about 20 minutes out a failry open, wild lands, winding, two lane canyon road. I was leading a pack of cars, and the car behind me was riding me pretty hard,..
I was maintaining a brisk pace, and on this one corner, on the inside of the turn, out comes a rodent of the right variety, and, in a moment of bad decision it bolts out, and, splat under the tires it went.
This also caused the guy behind me to back off. Maybe some splatter?

Get well soon.
 
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