Javelina Smorgasbord

Javelina Smorgasbord
Originally uploaded by Beaver w/ a Toothbrush

There was some wildlife excitement tonight. When husband was going out to do the watering he came across a few javelina in the yard. I came out to see them because I don't very often. As he was going to water, I heard strange noises coming from the other side of the yard. Since it was dark I got spooked and hid inside.

I shined a flashlight out the bedroom window in the direction of the noises and saw 4 or 5 javelina walking by. Then I heard scraping and crunching noises. I armed myself with a walking stick and a flashlight and went outside to check it out.

Husband was back by then and said he had seen 5 more javelina in the chicken yard. We started to hear a big commotion of snorts and grunts just to the left of the yard so we went to see if we could see anything.

In a matter of minutes there were 18 javelina concentrated around some kind of crunchy food, all fighting and snorting and chomping. We were shining our lights but they were weak and we couldn't make out what they were eating. I wondered aloud whether or not javelina were herbivores. We both thought they were fighting over an animal.

We risked slowly inching closer with our sticks and flashlights handy and after a few minutes enough of them cleared for us to see what they were eating.

What we saw lying on the ground between them was the partially gnawed seed block we leave out for the quail and other birds. One of them must have knocked it off the table. I ran back inside to get the camera and Husband shone both lights on them while I tried to take pictures.

We had a scary moment when we had inched up slightly closer to the feast with the lights off and then Husband flicked both lights on at once. The 18 javelina scattered like the grunting spokes of a wagon wheel.

It was too dark to get video but the noises were crazy so I recorded them.

After doing a little reading (on Wikipedia), the clicking noise in the video is probably the javelina gnashing their tusks to warn predators to stay away.

Garden Progress

Calabacitas
Originally uploaded by Beaver w/ a Toothbrush

We've had some ups and downs at the hovel lately. After Big Mike died, two more of our chickens died the next day while we were at work before we realized that the coop was getting much hotter than we thought. This will be our first summer with the new coop. I was pretty torn up about Lyla and Little Mike dying so soon after Big Mike and I made some immediate changes to the coop so hopefully we won't have any more problems. I'm monitoring it now and it seems to be staying a reasonable temperature.

Then some javelinas discovered that the fences around our gardens weren't all that sturdy and they ate almost everything in our two largest plots. We no longer have ground cherries, peppers, okra, eggplant, pole beans, melon banana, saucer squash, and a few varieties of tomatoes. We still have calabicatas which are doing really nicely, tomatillos, corn, and a few tomato plants. I was excited to see a couple of the stranger things we planted; maybe next year.

The tomatillos were the only things left in the largest plot. They seem pretty happy. I've also started pumpkins, sweet and hot peppers, luffas, and corn seedlings. We bought staples for the bottom of the fence. We're hoping that (and some pepper flakes sprinkled around liberally) will be enough to keep the javelinas out in the future. Although I should mention that the javelinas did us a big favor. They also ate all the weeds.