RE: Poachers on my land.
Oops sorry it is a west texas ranch. It is rather hard to frequent the property as it is a 6 hour drive. However I made a vowl that these guy's will be caught, and personally I cannot wait. The property is open range, no fences.
Before they would just turn feeders over, which could have been hogs. Last year everything went ok not much vandalizing.
This year my findings are this.
Feeder one, holds 350 lbs of corn, usually last three months or more gone in one month. Not possible. I think they lowered the feeder using the hand crank and either dipped all the corn out or bucketed it out. Animals cannot reach the feeder it is about 7 feet off the ground. All last year the feeder was not messed with to often by poachers and lasted three months between fill ups. The timer is under lock andkey and soon the lid will be as well. The top of the tri-pod is tied off to a tree it cannot be tumped over.
Feeder two, holds 300 lbs of corn, usually last three months gone in one month. I think they found the ladder I use to fill it up and bucketed the corn out or un bolted the tie down cables and un bolted one leg from the barrel and tipped it over as far as they could. Because the feeder has a boulder on each leg I don't think the tipped it over too far and just bucketed it out after that. When they tried to put the leg back in the feeder they could only get it back in half way "Maybe Kids". What I don't understand is why they would put everything back in place. Like put the lids back on or attempt to put the leg back in the support? The cables are attached to the feeder and down to the boulders. They are tightened with the screw fasteners those were unscrewed as well. Hogs and deer don't have thumbs to unscrew those.
Feeder three holds 350 lbs it was staked down with re-bar someone pried it up and dumped the feeder over. They also picked up the lid and threw it about 75 feet. An animal I don't think would drag a lid 75 feet away from a feeder.
Feeder four holds about 100 lbs or so. It is hunted by a local and was not touched. I have suspicion that it could be the local, but he is allowed to hunt all stands, on the property. He watches the place for me and keeps an eye on things. I though that since his family lives in poverty and he doesn't have a lot of money that he was taking corn away from my personal feeders to fill up his. "who knows" when something like this happens you suspect everything. I brought in three extra bags for him after mine were completely filled up again.
I'm going back late May and hopefully we are still up and running.
The good news, we filled up the feeders on Saturday spread corn and protein out and on Sunday at 8:30 we went up after the first feeding that runs at 7:30 to see what was going on. No a drop of corn left on the ground.
I have an abundance of game including hogs, whitetail, axis, fallow chocolate, turkey, and aoudad. It was reported that red stag have been seen, mountain lion, and rusian bore. But I have no seen any of these.
I know the aoudad are rough on the feeders but not so that they could tump them over after beeing staked to the ground.