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  • From: Liannan88 AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Critters
  • Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 23:39:35 EDT

Someone told me once that the concept of "letting the wildlife have their fair share" only works in Disney movies!  I've come to believe that.  Last year, I lost an entire field of watermelons & cantaloupes to night critters, probably armadillos, possums, pack rats & raccoons.  Never could catch them in the act, but they never bothered to eat just one, always had to have a bite out of all of them to see which was the tastiest!

I've been told that a dog or two would solve the problem, but as a market farmer, with a plethora of small livestock (& cats), I was REALLY hesitant to bring home just ANY old dog.  And finding a semi-purebred dog that wasn't of obvious terrier or birddog mix (birddogs tend to recognize that chickens are birds!) was really hard.  I just brought home a Rescue dog today that is a BullMastiff mix.  He gave up on the cats after one swatted him, & gave up on the chickens when he almost caught one!  He's not interested in either at this point.  Whether he'll take care of the critter problem, I don't know, but I've got my fingers crossed!  Just don't tell the Rescue people that you expect the dog to actually "work" on your farm - they tend to have a cow on the spot that you expect the dog to earn his keep in any way or fashion.  If anyone can get hold of a little pack of Standard or Giant Schnauzers, they were used in Germany to guard market farmers' carts, but I got totally snubbed by Schnauzer Rescue!

About the porcupines:  I know that they love to eat the bark off of fruit trees, & have a special fondness for apricot & peach trees.  Today the house, tomorrow the orchard!  I have a recipe for pickled porcupine to use in Cajun Beans & Rice if anyone is interested.  I dressed it myself & it was quite tasty!

-Maridian Carlton



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