Every winter in our area, the elk move from the high country to lower elevations. This means we suddenly start seeing them all over the place.
Interestingly, we've had an extraordinarily mild winter so far (a state of affairs that, frankly, is starting to worry us; will this correlate to a summer of wildfires?), so the elk have plenty of browse.
Coincidentally, we've also started noticing damage to our fencing.
Elk are massive animals – you don't really appreciate just how huge they are until you're up close to one – so it's no surprise that our modest fences get damaged by them.
It's one of those give-and-takes of country living. Elk are beautiful animals. Damaged fences is one of the prices we pay for enjoying their presence.
We use flagging tape tied to the fencing so deer can see it. Would that not work for elk? Maybe they see it but are so big they just bull through.
ReplyDeleteHaving worked all over north Idaho, I can say that elk love to eat flagging tape, every single color of it; makes it hard to actually find boundaries of units you are working on when they are marked by just flagging because the elk constantly eat the flagging off all the trees. So it probably would draw them in even more. I say elk are like range cows, if they want through your fence, they will just try to push the fence down, no stopping them.
DeleteWhy don't you hunt them and whitetails and wild turkeys? You would get all the meat you need without needing to have meat cows. It makes no sense to buy hay for meat cows when there is so much meat available. Milking cows I do undertand.
ReplyDeleteI mean you are both able and willing to shoot people, so why not hunt? I don't know about hunting laws in America, but surely property owner can get licence easily?
We've never been hunters. Killing a wild animal for food is unnecessary since we prefer the taste (and convenience) of domestic livestock over wild game.
DeleteNor would I say we are both "able and willing to shoot people." Self-defense under extreme duress – the only condition under which we would be "able and willing" to take a human life – is not a sport and is VASTLY different than game hunting. I hope that's a distinction everyone understands.
- Patrice
I'm curious what country you are from? The "willing and able to shoot people" was an interesting statement. We have the right to defend ourselves in America but it's illegal to do it for sport.
DeleteWow! Amazingly beautiful. They must be massive to do that to T posts. It takes quite a bit of effort for a person to remove those. We are in an older neighborhood with homes pretty close together next to a greenbelt. We see deer come through to eat the neighbor's pears across the street. They destroy gardens in a night. Occasionally we see a buck with a massive set of antlers. He has a brother he pals around with until they become enemies during rutting season. One day we looked over our back fence and one them was lounging by the creek. We always worry about our car getting damaged again in the side yard. Then, the mom's and babies start to visit so the next generation knows where the good eats are. The babies are so cute! It is a funny thing to feel remote in our quiet little neighborhood and yet we can walk to the full size grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, etc in less than 10 minutes. Beautiful and unique!
ReplyDeleteIs running a "hot" wire near the top of the fence but offset outside of it an option.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of options for insulators: https://purityfeed.ca/cdn/shop/files/electric-fence-insulators-snug-t-post-extended-length-dare.webp?v=1743147082&width=1214
A 6J fence charger will definitely get their attention.
How is older daughters wound doing??
ReplyDelete