There is a mouse

@Kyeh country. They come in through the drain in the garage. A lot die in the traps there. Got two In the snap traps in the room above the garage where the cats are not allowed. They rarely invade the house and I used to find out cause KitKat was on it’s ass and woke me up.

This one was in my way and I had to rouse them and point them. Dartanyan or Alex might have done better. But the big guns are in timeout

Technically the kittens have never seen a real mouse but if it moves…

@unksol That’s too bad. Maybe after next week’s big event you can let them go for it.

@Kyeh

He knocks the camera over but then sometimes he finds it

@unksol He takes his own picture?

@Kyeh Because they are up there I put one of the PTZ cameras there so I can check on them. He knocked it off so I was trying to move it to see what I could see and suddenly he just put his head right there. I thought it was funny so took some pics via the app.

If I had had the motion options on who knows.

@Kyeh @unksol
You need a maid to keep up with changing the litter of that many cats.

@Kyeh @Star2236 actually what you need is a good scoop. Takes maybe 30-60 seconds a box. The ones they sell at stores are crap. Well I have one good one from Walmart they stopped selling a years ago. The ones they have now do not drain litter worth crap, and their metal one the handle only goes in a few inches/rubber split after a bit and is horrible anyway. Had to resort to Amazon and just got them today but so so much better.

But yes need to focus on relocating some kittens.

@Kyeh @Star2236 @unksol You are right. The ones in the stores suck. The “screen” has openings that are too big so small pieces of cat crap falls back into the dirt box. The one I’ve had since the late 1980’s is finally biting the dust (rubber cover to the metal handle came off years and years ago). What is the good scoop you found?

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Star2236
Since you asked… Way more thoughts than needed

I like relatively large spaced uninterrupted tines. I just scoop half the box, the clean litter goes right through, then do the other half. Done. The Walmart/store ones have cross member or interupped sections and those seem to always require shaking the scoop for a while after each pass.

My issues is I need a large, quick, thorough scoop that all the good litter drains right off. I don’t really have issues with small pieces they make large clumps. So if you are trying to get little bits… Maybe not for you. Your litter might be less clumpy? Or not clay. Less dusty so less bind. Idk. Also if it’s one or two cats I’ve noticed with Alex/Dartanyan confined. A standard scoop kind of works with just two cats/one box.its been a while since there were just two… But I’m not concerned about the small bits I need the clumps out. Also if you don’t have to shake it you don’t break anything up to fall back in.

The old Walmart one I would have bought and still use
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Smarty-Kat-Smk-Looladle-Litter-Box-Scoop/14284798

The two I bought to try. But again I was specifically looking for wide uninterrupted tines.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JZ1N9MG?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

This one arrived with one tine broken at the handle side but worked way way better than the Walmart aluminum one and it’s crappy handle. like an inch metal handle then the rubber falls off. This one goes much further up. Im sure I could get a refund/replacement since it technically arrived broke but it does work great.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09S1YR6D9?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Relatively sturdy plastic although the discontinued Walmart one feels better.

Both of these are relatively low Amazon review but I was looking for that uninterrupted tine design and slope that works so well from the original Walmart one.

Similar ones now in my cart if I need more that have more reviews/I’d consider.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BFOHQEC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2MMG7ZJFEVCT6&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09FBW51B4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A1CB8NAA00AH8Y&psc=1

@Kidsandliz @Star2236 @unksol
I have the second-to-last one you linked, this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BFOHQEC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2MMG7ZJFEVCT6&psc=1
I think it does a pretty good job, being sturdy aluminum and non-stick; the handle is pretty good too.

@Kidsandliz @Star2236 @unksol
This is the one we have. Love it. The Teflon coating really makes the clumps slide off. The round corner is another design win. Very similar to @unskol’s first link.

IPRIMIO Cat Litter Scooper with Deep Shovel - Non Stick Plated Aluminum Scoop - Designed by Cat Owners - Patented Sifter with Holder - Super Solid Handle - Black

$17 https://a.co/7seAQsj

@Kidsandliz @mike808 @Star2236 @Kyeh
I’ve only ever had the Walmart ones. And it’s just a litter scoop but. They used to be ok years ago. Then they were abysmal. That IPRIMIO does look good. Probably a better built metal one than what I tried. I think I was debating metal vs plastic and had to hit a target so I split it cause I needed two

Of all the things to spend money or time picking out lol. An extra $5 makes a world of different when you are scooping shit first thing every morning

@Kidsandliz @mike808 @Star2236 @unksol
And so much of it!

@Kidsandliz @mike808 @Star2236 @unksol The “translated by no one who speaks English” description on the Iprimio at Amz was… typical. I’m sure the included user misguide was equally disinformative. Could sentence a diagram they construct not sentence make could.

@Kidsandliz @Star2236 @unksol @werehatrack
Do you really need instructions on how to use a cat shit scooper?

@Kidsandliz @mike808 @Star2236 @werehatrack while there are many things I would consider the poor English on a possible red flag… This is not one. It’s a scoop and IDK if you know but they like cats over there.

I don’t think the Teflon or nonstick or whatever is a necessary thing even if it’s real. But I do know the best you can get at Walmart is this.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Petmate-Cat-Litter-Scoop-Metal-Brown/40615000
And it’s a horrible design for several reasons

Or this
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vibrant-Life-Jumbo-Melamine-Cat-Litter-Scoop/750597046

Which is actually better than the Walmart metal one. But y have to shake it and you can get better on Amazon. For the price. Or just better

@Kidsandliz @mike808 @Star2236 @unksol @werehatrack
The Iprimio is made in Michigan, if you care about such things, and I couldn’t find anything wrong with their Amazon write-up.
Maybe you meant the Conlun one -
“Life is so much better with pet.”

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @mike808 @Star2236 @werehatrack i would agree the Conlun read more poorly. Was not seeing where the iprimio read like that. Although if it’s made in Michigan I would have bought that. Missed that too.

I don’t see anywhere it says made in Michigan or the USA though. It just says they are a Michigan based company which. Just means they’re are based in Michigan importing product.

However that can be an improvement sometimes. Even if it’s made offshore. You can still be dealing with a US company. But. Still it’s just a litter scoop. What could go that wrong

@Kidsandliz @Star2236 @unksol @werehatrack
The IPremio one I have has a 4.8 out of 5 star rating with over 28,000 reviews. They’re doing something right.

I also found no “Engrish” in the description. Just a detailed writeup of the features organized point by point. Not sure what unskol was reading but I don’t think it was for the IPremio scoop.

And I can say, first-hand, the Teflon is real and it’s spectacular.

@Kidsandliz @mike808 @Star2236 @werehatrack hey now “The “translated by no one who speaks English” description on the Iprimio at Amz” Was @werehatrack not me lol.

But I think it was probably in reference to the “knock off” conlun I bought. I do think the whole Teflon thing might be unnecessary since I’ve never really had sticking issues just want it to drain fast. I think it’s more the design but it can’t hurt.

But if any of this was made in the USA it would brag about that. Not “Developed and Sold by iPrimio a Michigan Based Company that makes the Amazon 5 Star CatLITTER Trapper Mat too.” just means the person contracting for and selling it may be in Michigan. And maybe even designed it. It’s probably made in china, but definitely off shore. Which is fine. I have no problem with that, it looks like an excellent design. And obviously when the seller/company is on shore you normally get better support although again it’s a metal litter scoop. You shouldn’t need any. It’s still in my cart if I need another one.

Iphones are "developed and sold by a California based company ". Most things are “developed and sold by” not “made by/in”

you’re an all-star

@Kidsandliz @Star2236 @werehatrack
@unksol Oh, yeah - sorry, you’re right - it says:

Developed and Sold by iPrimio a Michigan Based Company

So not made here, most likely.

@Kidsandliz @Star2236 @unksol @werehatrack We use the DuraScoop that you linked to. My last purchase was in 2011.

Still going strong.

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @Star2236 @werehatrack
I have one per floor. I mean I could have just carried the OG LooLadel around I guess. But there’s at least 2 boxes per floor and other than the unfinished basement they are kind of close so. Don’t really want to trapse up and down stairs dropping stuck litter

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @unksol @werehatrack
This is the longest conversation I have ever seen about pooper scoopers lol

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @Star2236 @werehatrack very true. Just got back from scooping some poop. Really as long as they stay in the box though. They are better than a dog.

@Kyeh Th part of the Iprimio writeup that went thud for me was “Handling The Poop with an Ergo grip handle which makes the sifter getting into the corners and take large scoops.”

@werehatrack Oh, you obviously read it more carefully than I did! Of course, plenty of native speakers don’t rite so gud.

@Kyeh @werehatrack maybe it is just me but I give folk who are ESL or third, fourth, etc a pass on perfect sentence structure. It is hard to learn a new language, so at least they took the effort to try. Just my two cents

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack As someone who has lived and worked in a number of countries and badly speak 4 languages (not counting English), I sound like a 3 year old speaking some of them even when I know the correct grammar. I also do not play grammar police on those folks.

@stolicat I think they relayed their message sufficiently!

@stolicat KitKat/Summer/Bambi mostly alerted me there was a mouse in the house, and would corner it, or if they got it carry it. They didn’t really kill them much. Mostly they woke me up and ran it to exhaustion and I chucked it out of a box off the back porch to probably die. But they are all gone.

I will say this kind of no bait trap against the wall catches a lot in the garage. Several similar ones
https://www.amazon.com/EATON-421CL-REPEATER-MULTIPLE-CATCH/dp/B015L3SCL4

I only have one but because mice follow walls, a lot die in there. I wouldn’t call it humane/no one is going to check it constantly and the mouse needs to die/will if you “relocate” it anyway. There are alot of mouse remains when I clean it out. Maybe some canabalism. One of the drowning traps might be cleaner.

@yakkoTDI OMG Priceless !!

@detailer And to think I just stumbled across it on Saturday while looking for a Caturday pic.

@yakkoTDI If only they could animate it and add lyrics.

@Kidsandliz Could be worse. My mom’s calico that we had when I was a young lad would bring home live snakes. Because we lived right near a creek she would usually bring home water moccasins.

@yakkoTDI That sounds impressive to catch a water moccasin without getting bitten. Unless they’re infinitely more docile than I’ve been led to believe…
Was the cat named Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?

@Kidsandliz Your cat was lucky to have a mom like you, a lot of people would have thrown HIM out the window!

@xobzoo Her name was FiftyFifty because she was so tiny at birth my uncle said “She has a 50/50 chance of living.” She was my mom’s attack cat and she drank iced tea.

@ircon96 It is extremely rare for a Calico cat to be a HIM.

@yakkoTDI Yes, it is rare, but i was responding to the story by @Kidsandliz , specifically the part about throwing the bug out the window. Venomous snakes are a whole other story!

@ircon96 DOH! That’s what I get for having a slow Monday at work.

@yakkoTDI Yes, “the Mondays” in general are my go-to explanation for various brain farts, no matter what day of the week it happens to be!

@ircon96 @yakkoTDI “I can haz the dumbs” is sometimes used here. There is also “I have a slow.” If you can catch a cold, you should be able to catch a slow, too.

@ircon96 @yakkoTDI The water moccasins I have seen in the water are pretty fast.

@Kyeh nope. The kittens still have to go and or be adopted. And only Dartanyan made it. 5 minutes late. Because I knew I should do Alex first but Dartanyan walked in his carrier so I shut the door. The he started whining about it and it took 15 minutes for me to get a hold on Alex but he went in the carrier easy enough one I did.

But the second I picked it up he lost his mind and started thrashing, I though he was going to hurt himself, then he kicked the door clean open, flew down the stairs and disappeared for a day.

In his defense he’s only been ever in something like a carrier when he got in the live trap as a kitten. So. Have to try again and he’ll be in the big carrier. Whenever we can get an appointment again.

But no cone of shame required. Dartanyan is being good despite all the screaming on the way there

@unksol Yikes. Well, one down at least! I hope you manage to get the others done.

@Kyeh We’ve had upwards of 20 kittens and cats fixed at this point, and we’ve never yet seen one doing enything that would have merited subjecting them to the stress of wearing the cone. The only cat we’ve ever coned-up was one who’d nervously groomed herself raw without fleas or other parasites present, and we had to keep her in one for close to two months until she forgot about doing it.

@Kyeh @werehatrack yea… they offered the cone… I told them that would stress him out more let’s not. But they must know that. No recommendation just do you want it. Also pain meds. I got them but didn’t give him any/he was fine.

Maybe alex will need them though so. Eh.

@unksol @werehatrack One of our cats came back in one and went around looking at us with such a sad, hurt, mortified expression - like “I thought you liked me, why are you doing this to me?”
So we let him sleep on the bed that night, which was usually not allowed, and that made him feel better.

@Kyeh @werehatrack he’d already been locked up a week plus. Granted he had Alex and windows open. And I sat with them after work. . But. Still. Anyway he back to normal. Alex has to go or be isolated before the girls start whining. But I did catch him chilling in the big carrier. Maybe if I get him in the night before but. Who knows

@Kyeh @werehatrack When we had the Avengers spay/neutered last year, I got the girls little kitty onsies that tied in the back and covered their tummies. They were adorable. But they didn’t stay on. And it would appear, I didn’t take a single photo of them upon their return home. Damn it. They were so cute.

I also didn’t give the pain meds past the first one, that was incredibly difficult to do.

@lisaviolet @werehatrack Oh, I bet they did look adorable! I always thought this kitty looked awfully cute in its little suit:

@unksol Awwwww…

@Kyeh awwwww that’s MY pillow

@unksol OH. You need a bedspread, then. I didn’t use to use one but Toby also loves to lie on my pillow.

@Kyeh @unksol outvoted

@Kyeh @speediedelivery I’ve been sleeping on the couch for a long time. The amount of cat hair on those sheets though is … My god. I mean eventually I should sleep in a bed again.

@Kyeh @speediedelivery @unksol Is the one face blurred out because that is the one who is fixed now? Cute babies. Good thing I am likely far away or it would be harder to just say no and walk away.

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @speediedelivery I think that’s Data. The boys of that litter are Picard/riker/data. Darkest orange to lightest. I would guess that was a combination of him moving/similar to the carpet/camera algorithm. Didn’t notice till you pointed it out.

None of the kittens have been in yet. Dealing with the 1+year olds that caused the kittens…

@speediedelivery @unksol Sleeping on the couch because of the cats or other reasons? No wonder the kitties think the bed is theirs!

@Kyeh @speediedelivery general sleep issues/bad habits/not sleeping at night etc. I did sleep in there a couple of times when they were younger and had gotten the hair out of everything. And them bouncing across me. But realistically it’s more me than them they just filled the gap. Although it is basically impossible to get cat hair out of sheets.

@unksol I have discovered, over the years, that cleaning out the dryer’s lint filter, and then tossing the sheets in as part of a small load with a fabric softener sheet tossed in as well often gets a heck of a bunch more of it out than would otherwise be extracted

@werehatrack yea I’ve done that hoping it would help before. It. Got some. But I still had to go over it with a rubber glove to even get anywhere close to removing it. Wore out several gloves. And that was before the kittens took over.

Granted these are cheap microfiber sheets so some better ones may shed it more in the wash. There is always the option of a top cover during the day but I don’t have the heart to kick them out of bed if the come to sleep so they’d mess them up at night anyway.

@unksol @werehatrack
Looks like the powers that be at meh are looking out for you

@chienfou @werehatrack I was tempted for a minute, especially since they had California king. Then read the comments. Pretty much the only way to get hair out of the microfiber ones is to wash them, put them on, the take a rubber glove and rub down every inch. And i already have microfiber ones.

I hear tighter cotton weave might wash better. The glove thing worked last time so. Meh. I don’t need more hot sheets.

@unksol They are all adorable but I’m definitely partial to the long haired kitty! Was there only 1 with long hair? So pretty! I wish I could adopt him (or her).
With 3 long haired cats already, my husband would kill me though!

Mine are usually good with getting mice, but last month one of my cats decided to bring one to our room at 4 in the morning…only for me to turn on the light (he makes a weird meow when he’s got a mouse) and see him promptly drop it to play with it…except it still had quite a bit of spunk and disappeared under some stuff. Nice. Thanks Koda. So now we have no idea if the mouse remained upstairs or made it’s way back downstairs…or if he was a snack the next day.

@k4evryng I’m guessing you are referring to Troy. Grey and white with some other tones. She likes being pet and will purr for you and there’s almost no way her daddy is not Dartanyan.

But Snickers lost all of her litter but Troy. Couldn’t feed them/keep them warm/when I tried to feed them/warm them up she moved them…

Idk that I’d call them long hair? Seems medium. Definitely not short. but he is prone to getting some knots and he is very poofy. And she is very cute.

But She also likes to pee on the comforter that is over the couch I think once a week. And she does it on purpose. Often while I’m there.

Granted she may do much better in a home with fewer cats.

@k4evryng @unksol I actually prefer short-haired cats because I love seeing the contours of their bodies, so graceful, but I do think Dartanyan is beautiful. He’d be my pick if I could take one.

@k4evryng @Kyeh well hes mine and the only poof kitty id had. but if you want any of the brats lol. Feel free. There’s 5 shorthairs and 5 poofy. But three of those I haven’t had enough time with/are standoffish.

Heck they all might be since they’ve only met me. But Picard/Ricker/Troy/Guinan chill up on the couch/lap and purr when they feel like it. Crusher/data/poof1 accept petting. Usually. The other three… Kinda just are around. And move out of the way/need some work.

@k4evryng @unksol Ah - I’m glad you’re going to keep him!

@k4evryng @Kyeh I don’t think you “get rid” of a cat. Especially once you’ve had for a year. Unless you really can’t take care of it which I know happenss
Adopting the kittens is a little different although I’m a little attached to the better behaving ones but. I should try cause this is too many. In theory. And they would be the ones that would be good/kept.

@unksol This was my bed today… Oh wait. Not MY bed according to the current squatters.

@jjnova Cats do not require a purpose, they just are.

@jjnova Cats are like luxury items - not for utility, but for beauty and sensory pleasure and amusement. Artwork and jewelry and beautiful flower gardens aren’t strictly useful either!

@jjnova @Kyeh
… and neither is your appendix!

@jjnova the kittens were born and raised indoors. And their first mouse encounter. They probably ran it out or to death from exhaustion once they saw it. I went to bed eventually.

Picture a stealth video game where you screw up and get spotted, then there’s a dozen guards blanketing the area lol

@chienfou @jjnova @Kyeh Believe it or not, the physiology research people finally found that the appendix does have a legit purpose. When intestinal flora have gotten out of whack enough, it spits out a stored sample that it stashed when things were more normal, and that reseeds the gut with what’s hopefully the good stuff. Sometimes what’s in the appendix goes bad, and that’s when you can end up with appendicitis.

@jjnova Would you like a gopher head?

If so, I can request one.

I’ve read that mom is the one who teaches the kids to hunt. If the situation is similar to @unksol, it would seem that there’s nothing to teach the kittens. Kill a toy? Yeah, maybe, but a live critter?

Our cats have access to our backyard (fence is modified to keep them safe on our property and not be a nuisance to the neighborhood). We have a couple (koff koff) of cats. Our pest problem is gophers. And the youngest cats are getting really good at guarding the gopher holes.

Ike, an older kitty, will catch a gopher and play with it to death. I’m serious. He doesn’t do a quick dispatch. Once it’s dead, he eats most of it. The other guys do cleanup.

Once, though, one of the Avengers brought a head to my desk. I wasn’t very happy about this.

The best mouser we ever had was a Shepherd/Lab mix. Her name was Sandy. She was pretty cool.

@jjnova @lisaviolet the best mouser I had was KitKat and he was the first and just found outside as a kitten under a trailer and had to be pulled out… I didn’t plan to keep him but he was just too damn clingy. Which is really unusual. Even kittens born inside can be more standoffish. He road around in my jacket the first day cause he kept jumping out of his box. But who would socialize then drop a kitten at the mall…

Summer and Bambi were outside kittens so they helped. Coco was an outside mom.

The current batch the mom’s were trapped when they were maybe 2-3 months old. So they didn’t have much time to learn, and they have nothing to teach the kids on. Just toys. Whatcha kept carrying around a toy crying but they did not pay attention.

If there were significant numbers of mice they would learn but thankfully there are not. Still a moving object is a toy to them so they will get after it if they see it and bring the crowd. They just aren’t exactly… Hunting…

I would love to be able to let them out in a controlled area. What @lisaviolet has set up is really cool. But out in the country I don’t think it’s doable. Raccoons have hands and I def don’t have the money at the moment.

@jjnova @unksol Trash pandas?

We’ve had our share. When I used to put food out for the Opossom joeys, the raccoons found it and made a royal mess of everything. They’ve pooped in our fountains, both in front of the house and in the back.

One evening, I found them in the office. Juveniles. They ran behind file cabinets and wouldn’t come out. Three of them that time.

Not a fan.

We have the sensor sprinklers set up at the back fence now, to spray the raccoon away. We’ve been lucky so far (knocking on wood).

They did get into the in the shell peanuts we had in an old cooler in the front of the house that I feed to the crows in the morning last month. We had to move the cooler. They make such a mess.

Here’s a video from ten years ago. (Man, our yard looked nice compared to now. Drought, hubby’s “junk yard” in front of the shop…)

@jjnova @lisaviolet I was thinking maybe they werent a problem down there cause you hadn’t mentioned them. Cause they would climb you fence with those damn hands. And it’s designed to keep in. Not sure we ever heard the racoons stories. Maybe when you let the possums stay in the garage? But don’t remember raccoons.

They only come up to the house when I put food out for the stray cats. They can all get up on the secondary deck. They only technically turn into trash pandas when I put food/scraps in the outside trash. Which. I generate very few of/freeze till trash day. And these days. There is almost always a bucket of used litter to drop on top which should discourage them. Doesn’t work when the food is on top. You would think the smell of cat litter would be a deterent

Still once in a while they break in cause I forgot/didn’t latch the lid and tear up the trash bag

@lisaviolet also have you posted pics recently? I could have missed. The boys from a year ago are big now. Way bigger than the girls. Was there an Avengers update?

@jjnova @unksol The babies are so keeyooot! One morning a few years ago, there was a commotion at the side of the yard, the front fence. I went out to check and there were four juvenile raccoons going over the corner of the fence. They just froze when they saw me.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but this year we got motion sprinklers for the back fence, over the pool pump, where we’d see them leave if we caught them in the yard. Not so much at the fence at the front of the yard.

It seems to have worked.

We had opossoms have their joeys in the yard a couple of times after the garage fiasco (“oh, yeah, they’re really cute and you can hold them and they won’t bite you” facebook told me…huh uh - not true, they bite - finally six months later we get them all out of the house). Brian’s shop door (repurposed garage) didn’t go all the way down and he was finding little opossom poops in the mornings, he started blocking off access at the bottom. No more food for them outside, because raccoons, and I think that with the motion sprinklers have pretty much kept the climbing critters out.

@unksol I’ve been taking pictures, but they just aren’t as cute as they were as kittens. lol

Goose is getting chubby, so it’s a lot easier to tell him apart from Steve. Bucky is adorable. The boys can get rough with their sisters. Wendy is stocky and can hold her own. Wanda hangs out over by the bank in the backyard, where the ferns grow. I guess there are a lot of lizards there. Carol is still a little princess.

Since we haven’t had non-feline animals coming in the house we leave the doors to the backyard open now. The Avengers had great fun being outside at first, chasing lots of bugs around the zappers, but it would appear that’s gotten old. They chase each other around the yard and sleep a lot.

Yanno, like cats do.

@lisaviolet lol I was thinking about Wendy and Wanda cause witches and Halloween.

I would not touch the wild ones. I have seen a momma raccoon move her babies across the back yard. Once a fox. And her kits. Mostly deer though

@lisaviolet
Skunk kits are redicouosy cute. These were like 10 years ago at work if I got the correct one.

But stay far away from the cute little jerks

@lisaviolet @unksol
A fox and her kits!

@Kyeh https://allthingsfoxes.com/fox-babies/

I have not seen her for years and you don’t want them around chickens but they were very cute

@unksol Yes, some people who live nearby in the foothills have posted pics of a beautiful fox family; another person has a black fox living close to them.
As for skunks - at our old house, the long skinny yard sloped uphill and one day I looked out and saw a pair of skunk babies playing exactly the way kittens do!

@jjnova @lisaviolet @unksol I have one (was feral the first 5 months of her life) who carries around toys in her mouth making that odd cry noise too. She is they youngest cat of the bunch and fixed so no babies to teach. Ever. Who knows what is up with that. She is picky which toy she carries too.

@jjnova @lisaviolet @unksol Do you cats fill any other orders other than gopher heads? Mine fill orders for lizard rear legs, cricket bodies and dead, but uneaten, cockroaches.

@lisaviolet @unksol Skunks… When I worked in the UK I tried to explain to them skunk odor. Nope they didn’t believe me how awful it was. So then I had a raincoat sprayed I had left hanging outside to drip. Never could get the odor out so I triple zip lock bagged it and sent to my friends. They became believers even though it didn’t small as bad after i had tried to clean it multiple times. .

Of course my Dutch friends think squirrels are wild animals (along the line of bears). One was on a bike seat outside the back door waiting for treats (my youngest sister fed it nuts) and he had to rush back in the house to get his camera to take a photo of the wild animal. He didn’t understand at first why I was laughing so hard.

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @unksol
Don’t they have skunks in the UK?

@Kidsandliz squirrels can be pests… If they set up shop in the house. You kind of haveto kill them. At that point you have to treat them like mice/rats. And you def don’t want to get bit.

The skunks. Well I think mom was just nesting under the mall so I made sure no one coming in that door early surprised them… But they were in a realativly suburban area. It was weird they were there. I hope they waddled off through the field and made it over the highway at night. I never smelled dead skunk near there but I also don’t think it smells THAT bad. When I drive pask one so… Meh

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @lisaviolet skunks are america’s only
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/striped-skunk#:~:text=Striped skunks live throughout North,populations observed on agricultural lands.

Striped skunks live throughout North America from southern Canada into northern Mexico.

@unksol We had skunks under the front porch when I was growing up (and chipmunks under the back porch - as kids we caught one of those in a butterfly net and checked him out before we liberated him). No idea how my parents got rid of them but it took a while. Years ago I had a robin’s nest (more than one year) on the front porch over the front door. We’d get dive bombed by the mom.

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @unksol
Huh. Americas only - TIL, I never knew that!
Did you know that some people don’t find the skunk smell offensive? It’s like cilantro, I guess. I had a boss once who said it smelled “fresh” to him.
unksol, did you ever think this thread was going to get so long?

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @lisaviolet not this long or this weird. I don’t thing it smells pleasant. But it is… Fine… Driving past. I’ve never been sprayed by one. Or stood directly over one though.
I definitely smell it coming. And passing just. It’s ok

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @lisaviolet @unksol omg, that is the worst smell. But baby skunks are so darn cute

/giphy skunk family

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @unksol @tinamarie1974
Is that at your house?! Six skunks?

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @lisaviolet @unksol no, but that would be so cool!!!

I do have to be careful when I go for walks as there are a lot of skunks around here. Ran into a mama and a bunch of babies years ago. It was adorable and I was terrified all at once. Lil

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @lisaviolet @tinamarie1974 I bet that’s a ticktock or viral video of them just running by from a ring doorbell. You can probably goggle it. But I have seen them when they are little run like that. It’s very cute just. Leave them be or else lol

I’d kind of rather see the idiot who chased them down

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet @tinamarie1974 @unksol I don’t see them but I do smell them around here occasionally. Raccoons are around here all the time though - nasty critters.

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol OMG, that’s so cute!

We were talking about this discussion last night and my husband told me about a time when he was a kid, playing on the property behind his childhood home (which is just around the corner from us).

the property is now developed with a mobile home park, but then, it was just land. And rocks, big rocks, piles of big rocks, that the kids liked to climb. And trails.

One day he was up there by himself and a mama skunk with probably six kids was on the same path as my husband, heading in the opposite direction, they passed one another with no problems.

He said the babies were super cute.

@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol

Even though the smell kind of turns my stomach, I like to smell it, because it keeps the coyotes away.

Not a fan of coyotes.