{"id":2412,"date":"2012-07-14T08:00:06","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=2412"},"modified":"2012-07-13T08:44:38","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T12:44:38","slug":"masked-bandit-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2012\/07\/14\/masked-bandit-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"Masked bandit massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No, not Zorro or the Lone Ranger. <a href=\"http:\/\/animals.nationalgeographic.com\/animals\/mammals\/raccoon\/\">Raccoons<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?attachment_id=2413\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2413\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2413 alignright\" title=\"raccoon1\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2012\/07\/raccoon1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"251\" height=\"201\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been some years since we had a barnyard problem with raccoons, but we were hit hard last month. Finally, we discovered&#8211;and removed&#8211;the family of raccoons which had taken up residence in our barn, where they were regularly helping themselves to a chicken dinner, or a late night scrambled egg snack. I&#8217;m making light of it now, but it was a pretty awful scene out there. Over a two-week period, which included locking our barn every night (of course, this didn&#8217;t work because unbeknownst to us, the bandits were living <em>inside<\/em>, not outside) with the hens closed in behind wire fencing, we lost dozens of eggs and almost 20 hens. Sure, the raccoons were doing what raccoons do: eating anything and everything.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve moved the remaining hens to separate, safer quarters, and we are raising replacement chicks.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2414\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?attachment_id=2414\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2414\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2414\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2414\" title=\"chicks1\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2012\/07\/chicks1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2012\/07\/chicks1.jpg 440w, https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2012\/07\/chicks1-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2414\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barred Rock chicks warming up under a light. These little girls will produce eggs in about 4-5 months.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>So, everyone I&#8217;ve talked to says the raccoon population has exploded this year. Ditto for other small mammals. What&#8217;s been your observation?<\/strong> Was it the mild winter? Normal cyclical changes in animal populations? Any wildlife specialists out there want to weigh in here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, not Zorro or the Lone Ranger. Raccoons.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s been some years since we had [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6224,8423,8424],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}