Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Update on feedings

I think I had mentioned we were going to try to cure the mangey fox by injecting a chicken leg with medicine that Leotis got from a wildlife rehab place. Well, since the raccoon ate the chicken leg, Leotis had the bright idea ;) to put out so much dog food, that the raccoon couldn't possibly eat it all and then there would be leftover food to entice the foxes. Well, I think the raccoon tried to eat all the dog food! Then the batteries went dead, so we didn't get pictures of what actually finished off the dog food. Then Leotis cooked up a second batch of chicken legs, and started putting them under the pond deck during the daytime, so that the crows couldn't get to it as easily, and so that the raccoon might not get it before the foxes, since we had seen the mangey fox in the daytime but the raccoon at night. Then the raccoon was onto the new plan, and made a daytime appearance. Leotis did put out one medicated chicken leg, which we think the mangey fox had a good chance of eating, because we saw him that day. He looks better in real life, and was running around at a good pace. He looks smaller than how he looks on the camera trap, since that is more at fox level. Leotis saw the healthiest fox in the woods, scratching itself, and it does appear that fox is starting to get mangey. My brother in law (a vet) advised us against this whole scheme, because we're messing with natural selection and we might be creating resistant strains of mange-causing mites because we can't control who gets the medicine and how much of it. So some foxes might not get enough medicine to totally get rid of the mites. Anyway, I had gotten behind in posting since I was getting used to my new software, but I have more photos I will post later. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The frogs are back. I counted like 6 of them today.

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