What the "Scat"?

scat - : to go away quickly : to move fast : scoot

scat - : excrement : an animal fecal dropping

scat - :jazz singing with nonsense syllables

All three definitions above will apply in this situation before this is all over, except the last one may be a stretch.  I am sure there will be some "nonsense syllables" uttered before this is over, but I am not so sure that there will be any singing.

Do you remember when your Mom told you that there would just be days that things didn't go your way?  There will always just be those days.  Well, here we go on another adventure. 

I showed you the picture of the snake egg that I found in my chicken coup, and I am glad to report that I have not seen the snake that so nicely volunteered to let my chickens become the foster parent to her offspring.  I don't mind telling you that I am always cautiously looking for her, but it seems that she has found another place to hang out.

This is what I usually like to see and what I usually find...

There are six eggs and two golf balls in this nest.  That means that one of my hens actually pulled double duty on this day because I only have 5 chickens.  I can't help but think that her friends want to peck her feathers until it looks like she has a really bad cow lick.  I mean, really?  Who needs to feel bad about themselves because they have to live in the shadow of an over achiever?

Sometimes this is what I find...

As you can see, there are no eggs and one golf ball.  This means that I have a problem.

Then I found this...





Obviously we have a golf ball, but then we also have "scat" from an animal other than a chicken or the cat.  I mention the cat because he has been known to curl up in one of these nesting boxes and take a nap, much to the dismay of my hens.  I have done some research because my first thoughts were that we had a skunk or a possum, both of which we have some experience with, but from what I am finding out, I don't think so.  I searched the Internet and the best that I can tell this looks like a raccoon.  We don't usually see raccoons around here.  It is amazing the websites that you can find relating to the subject of "scat".  Here is a link to one that I thought was very informative, and I was very thankful that they used drawings instead of actual pictures.

www.terrierman.com/scatanswers.htm

I have a live trap that is set with my bait of choice, a can of Fancy Feast, the catch-all bait for cats, skunks, possums, and hopefully raccoons.  This will be continued, unless of course this animal has been gracious enough to decide to scat, as in scoot on somewhere else.