Wildlife

Wildlife Information

Because the farm has lots of grain and hay lying around, there are lots of little pests around. These include squirells, rabbits, mice, and pigeons who have extensive nests and burrows all over.

Sometimes a squirrel will get stuck in a grain barrel someone left open and they eat alot of the grain. Once or twice we've seen young squirrels trying to nurse from a bucket that we use to bottle feed baby goats. They are very bold and will come up to eat some leftovers even if there is a person close by.

Rabbits are much cuter than squirells and even when we do see them doing damage nobody really minds to much. We don't see them in grain buckets so much, maybe because they can jump out, and they are much more timid than the squirrels. At dawn and dusk there are about a million of them sitting around in the driveway but they all run the minute a person comes.

The mice are pretty much controlled since we have cats, but, we still see some of them, usually in tack sheds at night. You know there's one around when someone's mother opens up a shed and starts screaming. They're too fast, small, and usually in the dark so we don't have any picturs, but here's a picture of the cat that eats them.

Pigeons are the biggest pests around the farm (except squirells) because they are so hard to control. The cats don't eat them and if you throw a rock at them they're back in thirty seconds anyway. Also they carry diseases the animals can get. We found a guy who'll buy them from us for fifteen cents each but nobody had bothered to catch them yet.

Because of all the little pests around the farm we get coyotes living here. You will see coyotes traveling in packs along the pasture and sometimes all by themselves just wandering around.

There are also road runners in the dryer parts of the feilds. It works out real well when you see a coyote, a road runner, and a shoer (they have anvils) all in one day. The road runners eat mice like the cats and they also eat lizards, except the lizards aren't pests, but it's nice to have the road runners around any way. They really do beep like the one in the cartoon.

A few hawks can be seen. They also eat the rodents that live near the farm.

Turkey vultures eat whatever the coyotes and hawks leave behind.

These pages were designed by the Computer Science project of the Irvine Mesa Charros 4-H Club.