Very near miss

[The Haymaker]

I had a friend in high school who lost a z24 (is that a "loss") because his girlfriend rolled it twice.... dodging a woodchuck. been 22 years and he still doesn't find it funny when "reminded".

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

I have a lot of toad in the yard.
They are about an inch long when you first notice them moving around. They get up to about tennis ball size.
Then they seem to start the cycle over again.

It is hard to see them very often when mowing. Occasionally I have seen one exit the discharge chute....... Not good.

However, at between 1 and 2" size, they make wonderful fish bait...........

Good luck

 

[jshwhite]

I hit a big snapping turtle last year, and nearly got into some poults.

With a bush hog? I know from experience that that made a mess A really big one is almost like hitting a stump.

I've hit many rabbits, birds, possums, turtles, - sad, but I guess it's just part of it. The one that really bothered me was a fawn - after that I try to time mowings when they're not so young.

 

[rd_macgregor]

I flushed a duck off her nest while mowing this spring...ran the tires right over her nest. I've also seen nestlings several times fluttering (not yet fully-fledged) across the mowed patches. Often, the foxes and ravens will come out to watch me mow and pick up mice and small birds exposed and/or injured by the mowing. Its a bit of consolation to see somebody get some good out of all the mayhem I wreak.

BOB

 

[deere755]

In 2009 we were very wet here and very late planting so a lot of the fields were over grown with weeds and grass. I hit 2 fawns that spring with the disk. I felt bad at the time but when I look at the damage they do to my crops it helps me get over it.

 

[boggen]

if you have not ran over or got an animal with a rotatory cutter. then ya not a farmer! seriously though, weeds just get to tall, and rotatory cutters are built and made to cut tall thick weeds. and small size trees / saplings. many animals, will hide there babies in tall weeds and like on purpose, so it makes it harder for predators to find the babies. and it just sets up for the babies to be killed with a rotatory cutter. i honestly do not see it possibly to walk all the weeded area before using a rotatory cutter. more so when weeds can become taller than you. all it takes is 2 to 3 feet of tall weeds and a baby that already blends into the weeds and dirt. to ran over it or get it caught up in the rotatory cutter. if you go back over threads in the "saftey" forum, you will most likely see a few threads a couple times or more a year. of someone not getting an animal but killing an actual human being. that was mangaled and killed by a rotatory cutter.

with the pasture and wooded area, i try to keep the FEL bucket a couple inchs off the ground so hopefully if i do come across an animal or a branch that fell down, the bucket will bounce / drag things up or push it along in front of me, rather than allowing it to get under a tire or into the rotatory cutter. it does not always work. but *shrugs* part of life, as much as i hate to state it.

 

[MHarryE]

Combining soybeans can really clean up the animals but that is life. You cut soybeans as close to the ground as possible and the cutterbars flex to follow the ground contour. I've combined lots of rabbits, a few skunks (the smell lasts only a few seconds if you don't plug it because of so much material going through), snakes, and frogs to think of a few. I've chased a lot of deer out but have never combined one. The weirdest thing was getting a live snake in the grain bin. How he made it through the threshing mechanism I'll never know but he was still alive when I angered him into the truck. In Mississippi I've found people standing in the field with shotguns as I get the last of the field because there are often critters running everywhere as I cut the last of their cover so the hunters are out to get dinner.