Sue update, and rat hunts!

It is time for an update. Sue is doing quite well, and shows every sign of being a great hunting hawk. She is not afraid of much of anything, yet is calm and very tame. I have changed the way that I am handling her based on her reaction to me. With Peg, I kept her in the house on a pole perch to tame her down. So far, Sue has not seemed to need that. It is a bit of a hassle to have a bird in the house that is capable of crapping in a large circle, so neither Karen or I are displeased.

I have been bringing her in and sitting with her while I catch up on the latest political crap. Actually I try to quit before my mood gets too foul to handle. :-) Of course the dogs, Curly, Indie and Betsy are moving around, and Sue doesn't like them at all, so far.

She will get over it in time. I do not have to use the dogs for Rabbits, so its not that big of a deal. If the Chukar populations are good this year, then they will soon learn that the dogs are a plus, and work with them.

Sue is weighing around 940 grams right now. about an ounce and half more than Peg flies. She is accepting tidbits and about to start stepping to the fist for them. I am in no real hurry to get her flying, and will take it at her own pace, but I will keep her as fat as I can to cut down on the vocals.

Living here in the desert is great, but it does have some downsides. Of course there is the wind that seems to blow most of the time. Since it is generally late in the day, when it is the hottest, it actually doesn't hurt, as long as it is less than 10 MPH. This year has been worse than anything that even the locals can remember, but what the heck, it could be worse. One of the other downsides is the rodents. I run a trap line for Mice, catching them in the attic, over the cool room and in the Motor home. It is nothing to get 4 or 5 a day, every day! The other and by far the worst is the Pack Rats!

http://www.desertusa.com/mag99/apr/papr/packrats.html

The above link should tell you all that you would ever want to know about them. This is the time of the year that the young are trying to find territories for themselves. This year seems to have suited the species very well, and the populations are booming. They are every where and in to every thing. I talked with Harry Stoddart yesterday and he was telling me that he lost his food freezer because a Pack Rat got into the back of it and chewed all the wiring up badly enough that it was not repairable. Any vehicle left for any amount of time will have one building a nest under the hood. I have one living somewhere around the Chicken house that spends the night packing the feed tray as full of dried Chicken crap that he can, so that the chickens can't eat his hoard of Egg Maker. With all that food, he seems impervious to the lure of anything that I can put on a Rat trap trigger. I'll find something to tempt him yet.

Every morning Curly conducts his Rat hunts. Most mornings he is successful, and although killing rats is not what he was designed for, Brittany's are very adaptable. Terriers bite and shake making for a quick end to the problem. Curly, more used to pointing, uses a "bite and spit" method that reduces the amount of bitten lips and noses. His biggest asset however is his nose. Of course he needs help, and that is where I come in.

One of their hiding places are these Rock Jacks. A water hose will eventually "flush" one out of them where Curly can catch them.

This morning was no exception. I was still lying in bed, 6 AM, trying to discover how crippled up the night had left me. ( you old farts will know what I mean by that.) Karen let the dogs out, and it didn't take long for Curly to find that one was hiding on the back porch by the entrance to the root cellar. I have a 55 gallon drum down there that I store the empty pop cans in until we can get to a store, and apparently he was hiding there. So I put on my "Berkies" to improve my mobility and went to help. It didn't take long, and there were very few places to hide, so Curly soon had him. Now the routine is that when he catches a Rat, he gets a Dog Cookie. Works out great for both of us. He is always very proud of himself and if you are quick it is possible to get a picture. He soon spits it out and goes straight for the cookie jar. Karen got the camera, but was hampered by trying to keep my wrinkled old naked butt out of the picture, which was fine with me, so I took the camera, and she held the dog still. I was surprised to learn today that the little "Squeaky toys" that you buy for dogs, make the same sound as a chomped Pack Rat. No wonder he likes them.

The extra one was hiding in the pool cover compartment. These are the White Footed Pack Rat. They get pretty large, about as big as a Fox Squirrel. The reason their fur is so soggy is that he tends to slobber when he bites them. A nice side effect of these hunts is that Peg gets them for breakfast.

We also missed one that had burrowed under the Hawk house where I am keeping some replacement Chicks. Perhaps soon we will run out of Pack Rats. Yeah right!