Bear meat, anyone?

Easy there tiger, I was there, you weren't. Assumptions get you nowhere. Head down, ass up facing completely away from me leaves no chance for a stray pellet in the hands of an experienced shooter. As I stated before, I would never injure an animal. If I wasn't sure of myself, I would never pull the trigger.
For my situation, this route leads to the survival of the bear.

Regardless, this is how threads get out of hand and off topic.

Hey Uno sorry to hear about your chicks. There is nothing more frustrating then taking time and energy to try and prevent something from happening and then having it happen Hope you are right and the dog has scared her off!

uno wrote:Just to calm any frayed nerves, I personally will not be pointing any loaded weapons at any bears, no matter how large or how small the calibre. HOWEVER, let the record clearly show that I CAN kill a pumpkin with a stick! Oh yeah, deadly to pumpkins! Let all the local pumpkins be warned...expect an ass-whoppin at Uno's!

If you do, be sure to set up a camera. You might as well get some money from America's Funniest Videos while you're at it.

This is getting ridiculous!

BEar was back again lastnight, gets in by yanking on the pen door, which rips the latch out of the wood. You would think that putting up a stronger latch would solve the problem.

You would be wrong.

A more 'bear proof' latch would mean that her efforts to get in would ramp up and more damage would be done to my structures. There was a smaller pen within the big pen,there is nothing in it, not food and no longer chicks. Bear keeps trashing it further each time she goes in. Tosses the metal feeders around for fun. I never know where I will find them. They are empty. My feeders HAVE to be empty at night!

HUbby has now propped the door shut with a board. The low tech solution. He's tired of replacing the ruined latch. I am contemplating ways to booby trap the hen house, but not very creative. Anything caught in my booby trap is most likely to be me!

This afternoon while Hubby was giving horses a snack, another bear wandered through. Smaller. Very shaggy and a distinct reddish cinammon colour. We phoned neighbours to give them the heads up, bear coming your way. We have a neighbourhood watch program, for bears, not criminals. It's hard to tell them apart sometimes.

Maybe you need to fight bears with bears.

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If you have a fencer you could try wireing the door up in such a way that it get's shocked ? It has learned that the feed/chickens is behind the door and it will not stop unless it learns a hard lesson ! Shock sometimes works in sending the message ? I think you'll be calling someone in ,conservation or a "' Friend "" to get rid of your problem though ! Once they know where food is they keep comeing back

This might be funny, only it's not.

I have called conservation days ago and am waiting for a call back, which has yet to come.

Stupid bear is here every night. Sometimes twice a night. Bear tears the latch off the yard door and goes into hen yard, tossing feeders around and destroying things. THE FEEDERS ARE EMPTY! I live in bear country and know better than to have feed out at night. But since she did manage to have a nice snack of Jonny Anvil's Orpington's (grrr!) she keeps coming back. Nightly.

Then bear broke into the secondary hen house. It is festooned with bear boards, nail covered boards mounted spikes outward so when bear leans up on a window ledge to look in, they get a paw full of pokes! It is creepy out there, all these spike board nailed to the building. So instead of pawing high, she pawed low. Got her claws in the door crack, gave it a yank, broke the latch off and left the wood of the door peeled back where her claws were. There was nothing in there for her to eat. But she broke in and ransacked the place anyway.

So now...we leave all the doors open. Why? TO cut down on property damage. The feeders are not even outside anymore. They are in the basement, as is the chicken food (pellets). I let the birds out to eat and they get their pellets on the ground OUTSIDE of the hen yard. I want to give that bear NO REASON to be in my hen yard so no food of any sort is in my hen yard.

Of course, this leaves my birds vulnerable to predation. This bear is too big to get in through the hen door. But a smaller bear can. A yearling bear would be in like nothing, killing chickens. We can slide it shut with plywood but I'm here to tell you that a slab of plywood does NOT keep a bear out of anything. But if a raccoon comes along, I won't have a bird left.

At this point I am beyond angry. Bear finds NOTHING to eat and just keeps coming back, wrecking things and waking me nightly with the clatter. I charge out onto the deck yelling obscenities and the bear runs off. For a while. Comes back again later.

I could set Hubby out there in a lawn chair with a gun. But Hubby is asleep 5 minutes after he sits down anywhere, not what you'd call wide eyed and bushy tailed. When he wakes from a dead sleep, a loaded gun is probably not the best thing for him to have in his hands. He's a good shot when alert, it's just the alert part that can be troublesome.

We try very hard to never be the reason a bear is destroyed. I do NOT feed scratch this time a year because I know it is like crack to a bear. There is never feed in the feeders at night. Having done everything we can, I am past feeling bad for this bear and hoping to be the one to pull the trigger. That was a lie. I could not kill a bear. But I could sure let someone else do it. This bear has eaten my birds and nightly does damage to property that it has no reason to frequent. I am not a happy camper!

Uno, what about having a radio on tuned into a talk radio station or is that a stupid suggestion?

Otherwise, serious electrifying is required - high voltage and a number of wires strung across.

Chicory, I tried the radio idea last time. Found it buried in the rubble after a bear rampage. All my chicks were gone, but the radio was still squawking. Maybe I had it on the wrong channel.

Rigging an electric wire is impractical in my setting. Although right about now I think it's our last hope. Either that or the darn conservation guys need to roll in here with their big, stinky trap. I am trying to be patient, I know they are busy all over the place with problem bears. I also know that chickens rate low on the list of livestock violations. I keep telling myself I can always get more chickens. But ongoing damage to fencing, doors and siding is getting a bit much.
Thanks anyway, I know many of you would step in to help (or to hunt) if you could!

Was it in classic rock? Might be the good music lured him in. You should have it on Justin Beiber.

Cayenne pepper everywhere?
I've used that for various animal issues.

Electrocution, bird shot to the butt, cayenne pepper up the nose, but Justin Beiber? To Justin Beiber a bear to death is just twisted. Twisted, Fowler, twisted. I am disgusted. We can no longer be friends.

Fowler, you're onto something here. If I were a wild animal, and was subjected to that, I would most certainly throw myself into the path of the nearest bullet.