What do you do with your varmints?

[searcher]

I also eat what I shoot, with the exception of varmints. Why? Because they're varmints!

Ground squirrels are usually puree'd, and are left for the raptors as they're usually in chunks. At the request of the ranchers I shoot their rock chucks for, most times the chucks are left at the far corner of the property for the ravens, hawks, eagles and coyotes to feast on. Next day not a sign of a carcass. Raptors here are well fed.

But I'll let our informal club t-shirt do the talking for you......

Yeah - one can shoot hundreds of them and all gone the next morning. We have to move occasionally once too many hawks and buzzards alight. The ground squirrels hate them - for good reason.

 

[searcher]

Last night a Racoon showed up on the fence outside my office while I was reloading. The past couple years there have been a lot of animals showing up in the city. My gardener said they often live in the sewers and come out at night looking for food. I have seen a family once before, a momma with 3 babies. This one was alone, though. I shined my cell light and there was the bandit's face, staring at me. I tried to get a pic, but he left when the light went off. Coons will stare at you like that, I once lived at a lake in SoCal and coons would come and eat the dog food, and if you shined a spot light on them they would just stand there staring back and keep eating the dog food. Interesting animals, they got some b@!!s...

My brother had six racoons come in his doggy door and ate a 50-llb bag of dog food before it was determined they were getting in. One day, opened the door and all those eyes just staring at him.

 

[TrapperBR549]

I shoot them because they make great targets. I try to always be frugal so I use the carcasses for bait to shoot other varmints.

 

[D Coots]

Shoot a rattler??? They eat a lot of mice....

 

[dunraven]

Coyotes go on the brush pile and eventually burned.

 

[JB10]

So growing up here in Arizona raised by farmers i was not around hunting. Was raised eat what you kill. I never saw the shooting an animal just cuz. Last 12 years i have spent large amounts of time out doors in the woods or desert. Got into preditor hunting and have seen some of the benefits of keeping coyotes under control for local wildlife conservation. Im amazed at amounts of predators i can get to come in. To me weather i get one or not i enjoy it more than sitting at the range poking paper. Get exercise while seeing some beautiful scenery. Having fun hanging with friends, just all around better stress reliever. While i do not save the fur, low price not worth it. I tend to just take the coyotes. Have called in many bobcats. I hate to let a beautiful animal just rot, so they get passes. I have also seen prerrie dog towns with so many holes i dont want to walk much let alone a poor cow or wild animal brake its leg. Prerrie dogs are also another fun hunt. Id rather shoot them than be poisoning them and some other animal eat them and also die. They do serve as food for some animals so dont want to see them killed off. I dont hit the same towns every year. I skip around towns.

 

[jds holler]

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

I'll roll with this, and try not to be wasteful, hurtful, or inhumane about the killing that I do. And I'll train any youngins the same way. jd

 

[Steel Mover]

Varmints come in different shapes and sizes. The US style get buried or left out for the buzzards, Coons, foxes, coyotes and skunks I leave for or feathered cleanup crew. Hogs I bury.
Pigeons in Africa are gathered by the local tribes for protein, we were shooting rock pigeons and speckled rock pigeons over the sunflower fields in RSA and the Masai women were picking up birds under the guns, had to shoot only high birds. Their normal diet is a mush made from ground Maze. Doves in Argentina are pretty much the same, orphanages and the poor. The birds carry off 25-30% of the annual grain crop in each country, so, we to shoot and pay to do so, it feeds people in two ways, besides paying the PHs and outfitters. I grew up on a farm, farmers kill the killers. Crows are a special breed of killer, they do not call them a Murder of Crows for nothing.

 

[Bill Clifton]

If you own the farm or critters that the varmints are damaging you wouldn't feel too bad about feeding them to the vultures.

 

[Ackman]

Gutpile them.

 

[Knotwild]

Leave them where they lay. The clean up crew reliably arrives by air within 2 hours.

 

[Old Navy]

What do I do with them? Not being snarky, but I shoot them.

As far as what I do with the carcass? Raptor, coyote, worm food. Or if in NY, turkey buzzards.

For every groundhog I swat, the farmer harvests an acre (on average) of alfalfa for his cows.

Prairie dogs? Well, not sure on that one. But it sure seems like owls and birds come like a dinner bell was rung.

Must be some big ground hogs back there?

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

Varmints come in different shapes and sizes. The US style get buried or left out for the buzzards, Coons, foxes, coyotes and skunks I leave for or feathered cleanup crew. Hogs I bury.
Pigeons in Africa are gathered by the local tribes for protein, we were shooting rock pigeons and speckled rock pigeons over the sunflower fields in RSA and the Masai women were picking up birds under the guns, had to shoot only high birds. Their normal diet is a mush made from ground Maze. Doves in Argentina are pretty much the same, orphanages and the poor. The birds carry off 25-30% of the annual grain crop in each country, so, we to shoot and pay to do so, it feeds people in two ways, besides paying the PHs and outfitters. I grew up on a farm, farmers kill the killers. Crows are a special breed of killer, they do not call them a Murder of Crows for nothing.

We don't have Masai in SA, they are from Southern Kenya

 

[Klong]

My brother had six racoons come in his doggy door and ate a 50-llb bag of dog food before it was determined they were getting in. One day, opened the door and all those eyes just staring at him.

I had fifteen on my trail camera eating at my deer feeder, thought it was cute,until they emptied my 55 gallon feeder in in a week/!

 

[xpppcbr]

Young groundhogs are ate around here , when I was younger I would use older groundhogs as turtle bait , but the young ones we would eat there great

 

[Ackman]

Yeah - one can shoot hundreds of them and all gone the next morning. We have to move occasionally once too many hawks and buzzards alight. The ground squirrels hate them - for good reason.

Years ago I shot a field so infested with squirrels it was hard to imagine that many in one area. Don't even remember how many wound up dead. It was very large number. Early next morning there were still cats, dogs, crows, and magpies out there cleaning things up.

And years ago I read in, I think it was Varmint Hunter magazine, about a contest to bring in the heaviest sack of varmints. I believe it was rockchucks, or it could have been groundsquirrels. It was quite a while back. To me it was laughable.....gatthering bloody gutpiled carcasses and putting them into a sack? No thanks.

 

[Pheasanthunter]

Years ago I shot a field so infested with squirrels it was hard to imagine that many in one area. Don't even remember how many wound up dead. It was very large number. Early next morning there were still cats, dogs, crows, and magpies out there cleaning things up.

And years ago I read in, I think it was Varmint Hunter magazine, about a contest to bring in the heaviest sack of varmints. I believe it was rockchucks, or it could have been groundsquirrels. It was quite a while back. To me it was laughable.....gatthering bloody gutpiled carcasses and putting them into a sack? No thanks.

Just as much fun watching the swift fox run out and grab a tenderized pdog a badger running around grabbing the dead ones and taking back to their hole. the bald and golden eagles dropping in for a tasty treat. The buzzards flying around waiting and looking for one away from the eagles, the hawks dive bombing on a easy meal. And in the evening listening to the coyote’s tell their buddy’s the buffet is open. Helping out the ranchers and government.(blm land) improving and testing your shooting and having a great time with family and or friends.

 

[searcher]

Years ago I shot a field so infested with squirrels it was hard to imagine that many in one area. Don't even remember how many wound up dead. It was very large number. Early next morning there were still cats, dogs, crows, and magpies out there cleaning things up.

And years ago I read in, I think it was Varmint Hunter magazine, about a contest to bring in the heaviest sack of varmints. I believe it was rockchucks, or it could have been groundsquirrels. It was quite a while back. To me it was laughable.....gatthering bloody gutpiled carcasses and putting them into a sack? No thanks.

Yeah - I don't think they were giving much thought to bubonic plague back then. Ha!

 

[jds holler]

Just as much fun watching the swift fox run out and grab a tenderized pdog a badger running around grabbing the dead ones and taking back to their hole. the bald and golden eagles dropping in for a tasty treat. The buzzards flying around waiting and looking for one away from the eagles, the hawks dive bombing on a easy meal. And in the evening listening to the coyote’s tell their buddy’s the buffet is open. Helping out the ranchers and government.(blm land) improving and testing your shooting and having a great time with family and or friends.

When my favorite squirrel field is really hoppin, I have to be very careful about hawks and eagles getting in the line of fire, or behind it.

Watching a swift fox would be the coolest. jd

 

[Chiquita]

I used to make roach clips from raccoon penis bones. T