WEBVTT
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they'll emit a stinky musk to try to drive you away if you're threatening them.
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And if all else fails, they'll keel over on their back and stick their tongue out and play dead, kind of like a possum.
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And they're total fakers.
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Like, you can flip them over, and they'll be like,"Nope," they're still there, and they'll, they'll flip back over on their back and play dead.
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That's hilarious
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Talking eggs and talking birds.
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Science stories, tips you've heard.
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Welcome to The Poultry Nerds
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There we go
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Well, welcome back Poultry Nerds.
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We are here with David
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You got it.
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I
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You
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Wow.
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it.
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Sweet
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So welcome to Poultry Nerds.
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How are you?
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I'm doing really well.
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Thanks for having me
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So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself
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Sure.
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Well, I am a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation.
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Um, we're one of the oldest and largest wildlife conservation and education organizations in the US.
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Um, and so we, we focus most of our program work here in the US, unlike a lot of other wildlife groups who are a little bit more global in nature.
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And our mission is to unite all Americans to ensure that wildlife and people thrive in a rapidly changing world.
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You don't want all the kids scared to death of all the bumblebees outside and
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Nope.
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Yeah.
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And, and, and actually I didn't really fully answer your question about me.
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You were asking about me.
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And so I, I, I'm a lifelong nature geek.
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I was a kid that, you know, I feel like ever since I was born, was just interested and drawn to animals and the, the outdoors and nature.
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And, um, I was lucky enough to grow up in a time and in a place where we had nature around us.
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And, um, you know, I think I'm kind of maybe one of the last generations of kids that got to just run around outside and play.
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Um, and so I grew up in the'80s when our moms opened the door and booted us out, and we played with our friends, and I climbed trees and caught frogs and, you know, did all that stuff with my sisters and, and all the neighborhood kids, and we came home at dinnertime.
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And, um, unfortunately, that's happening less and less these days.
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And so that's one of the reasons behind a lot of the National Wildlife Federation's work about getting people reconnected to nature and why that's so important.
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But, um, but yeah, I grew up, um, in suburban New Jersey, um, which is I, I have returned after, uh, moving away for many years and came back here a few years ago.
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And yes, there is nature in New Jersey.
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Um, for anybody that just has the, you know, The Sopranos and Newark Airport in their mind, there's the...
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You know, those are just stereotypes and, and, you know, God forbid, Jersey Shore, which by the way, all those people are from New York, but I won't go down that, that
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I always thought that was kind of funny too.
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Yeah.
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of them are from New York and they call it Jersey Shore
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I grew up on the Jersey Shore, and so yeah, there- that's a sore point for, for those of us who actually lived there.
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Um, but no, at any rate, um, yeah, so I just had this innate love of nature, and I got to experience it as a kid, and that...
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You know, I was a junior naturalist at our local nature center, and ultimately I went on to get a degree in human and natural ecology from Emory University.
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Um, and then I, after that, knew I wanted to work in, in a job that, you know, helped, helped the natural world, helped wildlife, helped people get connected to nature.
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So I landed at the National Wildlife Federation 26 years ago.
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Um, and I came, uh, to, to again, work as a naturalist, and I started out with our Garden for Wildlife program, trying to teach people, again, the right plants that you can put into your landscape that are gonna, again, draw in the butterflies and our native pollinators like bees and, and support the songbirds which are declining, and really just make a natural space right outside our door.
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But if you wanna save monarch butterflies, for example, we all can do things, very simple things like planting some native wildflowers like milkweed, which is the only caterpillar host plant for the monarch butterfly.
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And every one of us can do that, and that's kind of an empowering thing,'cause I can guarantee you, when you plant that milkweed, you're gonna see monarchs show up.
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And when people get to see the impact of their good actions, it just becomes really, really powerful, and it's something that I personally feel very passionate about, this idea of, like, local ecology and, and all of us, you know, again, making small changes in our life that will make a difference and make the world a better place.
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And so that's kind of a little snapshot of, of what my passions are and what I do at the National Wildlife Federation.
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So as a naturalist, it's my job to help people understand nature.
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And, you know, naturalists usually work in places like nature centers or national parks or even zoos.
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I do my work as a naturalist largely in the media.
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So I've hosted series on Animal Planet and Nat Geo Wild.
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I do lots and lots of podcasts like this one, um, and, uh, lots of radio and everything else.
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If there's a media opportunity, I'm gonna take advantage of it to hopefully get people inspired to care about animals and nature.
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Wow.
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So do you have like a whole farm or do you like live in a subdivision?
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live in suburbia.
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I live actually about 13 miles, uh, due west of Lower Manhattan in one of the first sort of suburban neighborhoods in New Jersey.
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And, um, yeah, it's, uh, even with that said, we've got quite a healthy white-tailed deer population.
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We've got a mama with twins that lives on our block.
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We see her almost every day when we're walking the dogs.
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Um, obviously squirrels everywhere, lots of songbirds, and every couple years we do have a black bear.
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Usually it's the second-year cub that is leaving his mom and hasn't quite figured out where, where to go, and so this year is one of those.
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We've got a, a black bear running around, of course, getting into trouble, knocking over people's trash cans, and, um, but he, he, he hasn't been spotted in, in, in several weeks, so I think he's, he's sort of moved on.
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So just taking your little spot right there, your house, your neighborhood, what, what do you tell your neighborhood kids about these black bears and squirrels and deer?
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What do you tell them?
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Yeah.
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Well, I mean, the big message with black bears, and, and I don't know if, if you all have them where you are,
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No
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but here's the thing is that Uh, the first thing that I try to do when I'm, when I'm talking about wildlife and coexisting with wildlife, you know, with these wildlife neighbors, as I call them, hel- helping people understand that you're not in any real danger, for the most part, living in a place that actually has healthy wildlife populations.
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always, wildlife will flee from us, and that includes big wildlife like black bears.
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Black bears basically have...
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You know, animals have a flight or a fight response oftentimes.
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Black bears generally have a flight response to danger.
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Um, and what they wanna do is get away from it.
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They'll, or if they can't run away, they'll climb a tree.
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And that typically is what happens.
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Um, and so, so the, the...
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But really that goes for anything, and most people don't live places where black bears might show up.
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So usually for me, it's more helping people kind of get over their fear of, I don't know, bees, right?
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Bees people freak out about.
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And yes, bees can sting, it hurts, and yes, certainly some people are allergic.
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You have to be, uh, aware of that.
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But the reality is, is that if you understand why a bee stings, you realize that it has absolutely zero interest in stinging you ever
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Угу
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are threatening it, whether you're doing it on purpose or 9 times out of 10 you're doing it inadvertently.
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But if you're aware of your own behavior, you can avoid so much of the potential for any kinds of conflict with wildlife.
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And so the story with bees is that bees can sting, and they typically will do that as a defensive, you know, a defensive measure, right?
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And it's only the female bees that can sting.
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over 90% of those bees are not social.
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What that means is that they don't live in a hive.
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are no queens.
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are, they don't make honey.
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And because they don't have hives that are filled with honey and all of their larvae, have no motivation to be defensive to sting.
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So even though the females can, they're not trying to guard a hive And so your risk of getting stung by the vast majority of bee species out there is almost zero, unless you literally pick them up in your hand and try to squeeze them.
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So it's that kind of thing I try to help people understand, because if you just leave them alone and you are aware of your surroundings, always you can avoid conflict.
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And that even is even true of, you know, potentially dangerous animals like venomous snakes or, you know, that kind of thing.
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I mean, if you understand that these animals are out there, that they want nothing to do with people, it, you know, they're gonna be defensive of themselves, but if you leave them alone, your chances of getting injured by them are pretty much zero.
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And the statistics show that you're more likely to be killed by a cow or a bolt of lightning than you ever are from any kind of wild animal, whether it's a bear or a bee.
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Um, so just perspective I think is really important, and awareness, and those are good things that, that kids and adults should all have anyway
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Okay, so let me just ask you this.
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So all these hundreds of species of bees that we have, the one that drives me the most crazy in the barn and the poultry coops and things is the carpenter
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Derbys.
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I knew you were gonna say it.
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So
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with those?
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carpenter bees, they, they can be annoying and they can do some damage, um, to our wood.
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And so carpenter bees are, are solitary bees, so they are not out there forming a hive.
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Um, and but...
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And so this c- is kind of a highlight to, to what the, the non-hive-forming bees do.
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Most of those, the, the 90-plus percent bees that are not social and they don't build hives, will nest in tunnels.
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the majority of those bee species, like two-thirds of those solitary bees, are actually making little tunnels into the ground.
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And it's one female bee, and she, you know, will make a tunnel or enter a tunnel that's already there, and she'll fill it with a series of little chambers in which she'll lay an egg.
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And then she gives that egg a little ball of pollen and nectar that we call a bee loaf, like a little loaf of bread.
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Super cute, right?
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Mm-hmm.
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she builds a little chamber wall, usually with mud, some species will use a leaf, and then she leaves.
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And this is another reason why they're less likely to si- sting, because she's not protecting her babies at all.
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And this is true for carpenter bees, too.
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Now, the ones, the bees that are not nesting in the ground, the one, the other third of those solitary bees are nesting in tunnels in either plant stems or, like, dead and decaying wood.
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So for carpenter bees, that's what's, what's happening.
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They are out there searching for wood that has tunnels in it from termites or, um, you know, or carpenter ants or beetle larvae.
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Um, they'll take those over and they will chew it open wider and they will excavate their own holes.
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But generally, they're first, first looking for that, that rotten wood.
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So my first tip is, you know, your house.
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Maybe you...
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You know, in fact, I just had to do this in my own house, which is almost 100 years old, so you can imagine some of the wood here and there is starting to rot, and I did have carpenter bees.
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So, you know, first and foremost, I would say try to remove that dead wood and replace it, you know, paint it, and that usually does the trick.
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They will sometimes still target, um, you know, le- less wood, if you will.
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Um, and so, one thing to keep in mind is that the carpenter bees can be kind of intimidating'cause they're big bees.
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They're bigger even than bumblebees.
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And they are territorial, and they will fly right in your face, right?
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And it's understandable that people kind of get freaked out by that.
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But guess what?
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That is the male bee, and what he's doing is kind of patrolling a little territory where he knows there's good nesting habitat, so he can mate with the females that are coming, checking that out.
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And remember what I just said a few minutes ago.
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Male bees cannot sting.
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They don't even have stingers.
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So he is all boss and no bite, no sting.
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He can't do anything to you other than buzz in your face.
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So again, right there, if people understood that, I think carpenter bees would be a little bit less scary to people.
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But going back to the wood damage thing, um, some things you can do are to get some, like, screening And affix that over any kind of holes that the bees are using.
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Now, yes, that's gonna make s- you know, any bee larvae that are in there are not gonna survive.
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Carpenter bees are not in trouble.
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They're not going extinct or anything like that.
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So, you know, if it's a choice between doing that and spraying pesticides, I would definitely recommend just going for the manual exclusion device, and then think about filling in those holes with wood putty and/or replacing the wood altogether, and again, that should do the trick.
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Um, and then I would say kinda last resort would be to spray pesticides, but I really encourage folks to use pesticides as a very, very, very last resort because they, they kill stuff, you know, and that's what they're designed to do, and it's oftentimes, uh, most of the pesticides that we use are what we call broad spectrum, which means they're gonna kill any insect that comes in contact with them.
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So that is, you know, the pest you're trying to get rid of, but also the beneficial bees, and which carpenter bees are.
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They're pollinators just like every other bee.
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Um, and but it's, they're also gonna kill the ladybugs and the dragonflies and, you know, all of the other beneficial insects that are out there that you don't wanna kill, the butterflies and so on.
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So I would, you know, really caution to, to not use pesticides if you can.
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But, you know, with carpenter bees, first tip, they're not as scary as they want you to think they are.
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They're not gonna hurt you.
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Two, clean up your rotten wood, and three, just, you know, try and live and let live wherever you can, and if you absolutely have to resort to, you know, methods to get rid of them, use manual methods like replacing the wood or screening, and that should solve the problem.
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Well, you, you wanted to talk about, um, the kids and bringing them into it and being more observant outside.
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That was your point of, of your new show that we're talking about today.
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But the part of why I wanted to bring up the carpenter bees is I've- I'm not scared of them.
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They don't bother me.
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I, I think they're kinda cool'cause they kinda hum around.
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But when the kids go out, if they find the little tunnels, if you look down underneath of them, you'll find a pile of sawdust,
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they will drill.
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Yeah
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do drill, and they leave a pile of sawdust behind.
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So then you would know what is up in that hole.
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Yeah.
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I
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y- yeah, that's a great...
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So, so observation
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Mm-hmm.
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one of the key skills that, that you use as a naturalist, and it's something that I always try to encourage and foster in kids,'cause kids are naturally observant.
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Sometimes too observant, you know?
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When they're looking at, you know, the people at the next table in the restaurant and asking impolite questions, right?
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And so, so but, you know, if your kids are, are, are noticing stuff like that and mentioning it, that is, like, amazing.
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I would encourage that.
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What else can you find?
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You know, one of my favorite activities to do with kids is a nature scavenger hunt, where you literally can just come up with, like, 10 things like, you know, a, a, a round rock, a bird feather, a yellow flower.
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Send the kids out to go find that, you know?
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And once they find it, they can come back and they can get a little prize.
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And what that does is encourage them to go out and, and practice being an observer and practice exploring and, you know, that kind of thing.
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And so that...
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So you mentioned, um, a, a new show that I'm doing.
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I, I'm, I'm, uh, involved in a podcast called Wild Critters USA, and it's a partnership between National Wildlife Federation, through our Ranger Rick magazine that I mentioned, and PBS Nature.
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And in every episode, it's a weekly podcast that drops, for kids, it's actually kids that are asking questions of nature experts.
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So we have folks from the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Smithsonian National Zoo, a different expert on every episode, and kids get to ask them questions about different, you know, different wildlife species.
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It's all focused on the US, so it's all North American US wildlife species.
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And I have, I get an extra special thing to do, is that I get to be in every episode representing Ranger Rick, and I get to answer one question from, from kids.
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So, you know, I've had kids asking me questions about alligators and were they around, you know, from the time of the dinosaurs.
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Um, we have an episode that's about to come out on monarch butterflies, um, that I already mentioned a minute ago, and kids wanted to know, like, how do they find the milkweed?
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You know, milkweed, again, is their caterpillar host plant.
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But how do they know, in all the plants out there in the world, how to find it?
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And the answer is that I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give this one to you, but I still want you to listen to the episode of Wild Critters USA when it comes out, is that the, the female monarchs, they're using visual cl- cues as they're flying around, but they're also scenting for it.
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Their antennae have, uh, scent receptors that they can get, you know, the scent of the plant.
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But that's still not enough.
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What they have to do is land on it, and they have little barbs on their feet and they can scratch the leaf.
00:18:32.406 --> 00:18:46.866
And many butterfly species actually also have taste receptors in their feet, they can actually taste and be like,"Oh, this is milkweed," and not, you know, uh, some other plant that is not gonna be edible to their, their, their caterpillars.
00:18:47.566 --> 00:18:49.356
So it's, you know, nature's fascinating.
00:18:49.666 --> 00:18:57.376
And so that's the kinda stuff that we get to talk about on Wild Critters USA to inspire kids, again, to go out and learn about nature.
00:18:57.506 --> 00:19:07.566
And of course, kids are listening with their parents too, so you probably, you know, e- if you're a parent, you probably know that kids are a really great way to influence parents.
00:19:08.306 --> 00:19:11.456
If kids are asking, moms and dads tend to listen.
00:19:11.456 --> 00:19:13.256
And so, um, but anyway, yeah.
00:19:13.306 --> 00:19:30.276
What do you do with, say, possums and raccoons, and how do you live with those kind of animals, foxes, but not let them eat your that's your pets, like your chickens or your dogs or cats or something like that?
00:19:30.696 --> 00:19:31.966
Yeah Great, great question.
00:19:31.986 --> 00:19:39.206
Um, part of this whole idea of gardening for wildlife is helping people figure out ways to, to sort of live without conflicts with wildlife.
00:19:39.216 --> 00:19:46.586
Because for sure, wild animals sometimes are gonna become problematic depending on your situation.
00:19:46.586 --> 00:19:56.116
And if you are, you know, a backyard chipping- chicken keeper, a poultry lover, and you have, you have that kind of, of animal, whether you think of it as livestock or, or a pet, right?
00:19:56.328 --> 00:19:56.338
Mm-hmm.
00:19:56.426 --> 00:20:03.606
Tho- those kinds of wildlife, raccoons, possums, foxes, hawks can be, can be dangerous, right?
00:20:03.606 --> 00:20:15.046
And so I think, um, the first thing I'll say is that those, those four wildlife species that I just listed off there are not really a threat to other kinds of pets like dogs and cats.
00:20:15.396 --> 00:20:29.596
Um, there, there's a lot of fear, especially with foxes, which I find funny because foxes, the, the, the fox that we're typically seeing in our yard is the red fox, I don't think people-- Most people don't realize that these are not large animals.
00:20:29.596 --> 00:20:34.466
The average weight of an adult male red fox is only 15 pounds.
00:20:35.186 --> 00:20:36.966
Um, you know, they're, they're really just about
00:20:37.021 --> 00:20:37.251
Yeah
00:20:37.336 --> 00:20:38.196
of a house cat
00:20:38.341 --> 00:20:38.641
at all
00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:42.130
They're mostly long legs and big poofy tails, right?
00:20:42.370 --> 00:20:44.540
So they look much bigger than they actually are.
00:20:44.540 --> 00:20:52.110
And their natural prey is things like insects, rodents, small birds, maybe rabbit-sized animals.
00:20:52.110 --> 00:20:58.770
But raccoons, possums, skunks, foxes, they're generally preying on s- on smaller things.
00:20:59.070 --> 00:21:01.830
Um, so in terms of your dogs and cats, you don't really have to worry.
00:21:02.090 --> 00:21:07.430
Um, but if you have chickens, I think my advice, and I personally am not a chicken keeper.
00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:09.430
It is on my bucket list one of these days.
00:21:09.650 --> 00:21:11.240
I wanna get my own, my own little flock.
00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:16.940
My sister is, though, and she's, she's struggled with this a little bit with foxes and with hawks in particular.
00:21:17.350 --> 00:21:29.160
So I think my best advice there is, um, And my advice is to practice really good animal husbandry, part of that is having safe, secure enclosures.
00:21:29.620 --> 00:21:29.850
And
00:21:30.099 --> 00:21:30.289
Mm-hmm.
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:41.550
um, I think doing the extra work to make sure that your chicken coops and your runs and, and whatever enclosures they're in are really super predator safe.
00:21:41.860 --> 00:21:50.890
Um, and again, I'm not a, a super expert on the poultry angle of this, but I do know that, you know, raccoons have been known to reach through, you know, chicken wire and grab chickens, right?
00:21:50.890 --> 00:21:52.180
And that's-- nobody even wants to
00:21:52.281 --> 00:21:53.831
They, like chicken just like we do
00:21:54.100 --> 00:21:54.720
Exactly.
00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:54.940
Yeah.
00:21:54.940 --> 00:21:56.240
And they'll take advantage of it, you know?
00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:57.430
It's a food resource for them.
00:21:57.430 --> 00:22:01.770
They're intelligent animals, and they're just trying to get a meal and feed their babies just like everybody else.
00:22:02.073 --> 00:22:02.513
Mm-hmm.
00:22:02.930 --> 00:22:15.040
um, so, you know, I would use whatever the best practices are that, you know, that the, that the poultry world is exploring and investigating and, um, you know, manufacturing and those kinds of things.
00:22:15.330 --> 00:22:21.770
Um, you know, when it comes to letting your birds free-range, which I know a lot of people do because there's a lot of benefits to that.
00:22:21.770 --> 00:22:22.900
They eat a lot of pests.
00:22:22.900 --> 00:22:24.360
They churn up the soil.
00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:29.970
I think, again, there's best practices there, like them in at night when a lot of these predators are active.
00:22:30.300 --> 00:22:30.590
That
00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:31.040
Угу
00:22:31.040 --> 00:22:35.070
bit less foolproof when it comes to hawks, which can be active during the day.
00:22:35.430 --> 00:22:48.280
Um, so, you know, I think if the hawks are a problem, um, again, the solution that my sister did is that she made a bigger enclosure and generally does keep the birds in the enclosure, and it's got a roof, um, that is hawk safe.
00:22:48.590 --> 00:22:53.170
She will let them out when she's out, um, to supervise and, and hasn't had any issues.
00:22:53.240 --> 00:23:13.810
So I think, I think there's, you know, there's sort of husbandry angles that you can get at, at managing the worst of the predator issues, um, that will keep your chickens safe And I will note too that s- with the, with the hawks, with, with birds, they are federally protected, and it is illegal to, you know, try to kill them or harass them and all that kind of thing.
00:23:14.080 --> 00:23:20.780
Um, so I know some people would like to do that because watched them nab their, their, their precious chickens.
00:23:20.780 --> 00:23:27.660
Um, but unfortunately, you know, for good or for ill, um, it is not a legal thing to do and, um, also not an ethical thing to do either.
00:23:27.980 --> 00:23:45.210
Um, I think some other tips I can give that I think are probably poultry keepers are all gonna, gonna know this is, um, again, it's a husbandry thing, and that is storing your, your food a, in a s- sort of a, a pest-proof environment, right?
00:23:45.240 --> 00:24:02.200
So that you don't, you're not drawing in things like rats or mice, um, or you're not drawing excess amounts of them by not keeping your, your chicken feed stored properly because that of, that can actually also draw in some of these predatory animals because they naturally will be feeding on rodents.
00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:05.870
Skunks and possums in particular are big rodent eaters.
00:24:05.870 --> 00:24:21.060
And so, you know, if you have, chicken feed everywhere and, you know, mice and r- rats have chewed into the, the bins or whatever, you're just, you're just ringing the dinner bell even more for some of those animals that could also be a possible danger to your chickens.
00:24:21.390 --> 00:24:35.060
So if you keep that, that, that, that, uh, chicken feed in a metal bin or whatever, you know, that's, that's, that's pest proof, that will just be one other thing that you can do to help minimize the risk that your chickens are gonna be put in danger from wildlife.
00:24:36.172 --> 00:24:45.472
So back to the possums, skunks, foxes, most of those coyotes, they're all opportunists, right?
00:24:45.652 --> 00:24:46.052
Yeah
00:24:46.312 --> 00:24:59.342
So in my case, I have 18 acres, and so I've got animals everywhere, but the farm next to me won't shoot the coyotes, and he lets them ravage his animals.
00:24:59.662 --> 00:25:08.772
So in my case, I just have to be more predator-proof than him because he's the easier opportunity for the critters.
00:25:09.582 --> 00:25:09.882
Yeah,
00:25:09.932 --> 00:25:10.462
make sense?
00:25:10.672 --> 00:25:13.542
me because they eating his animals, not mine.
00:25:13.766 --> 00:25:14.086
Right.
00:25:14.812 --> 00:25:16.202
So it's fine for me.
00:25:17.515 --> 00:25:18.055
for them though
00:25:18.282 --> 00:25:18.692
Yeah,
00:25:19.146 --> 00:25:19.526
Yeah.
00:25:19.566 --> 00:25:20.206
Well, you're right.
00:25:20.216 --> 00:25:22.836
That sounds like it's a him problem and not a you problem then.
00:25:23.136 --> 00:25:24.216
If, if you're
00:25:24.280 --> 00:25:25.020
of getting at.
00:25:25.020 --> 00:25:31.060
If you, if you can button yours up just a little bit more, they're gonna go for the easier spot
00:25:31.336 --> 00:25:31.906
Sure, Yeah.
00:25:32.846 --> 00:25:33.316
You know what?
00:25:33.346 --> 00:25:33.706
I guess
00:25:33.915 --> 00:25:35.505
Well, that's like with the bears.
00:25:36.045 --> 00:25:40.155
I mean, if, if there's a bear loose, y- you just gotta be faster than somebody
00:25:43.382 --> 00:25:44.972
Yes, that, yes, that is true.
00:25:44.972 --> 00:25:48.042
But, but again, in most cases, the bear is not gonna, not gonna come after you.
00:25:48.122 --> 00:26:12.992
But, um, no, what I was gonna say is, um, you know, another maybe helpful bit of advice on that scenario, building on this idea that, you know, wildlife are opportunists and they are gonna take advantage of a food source if it's there, especially if it's easy to get, um, is maybe a perspective thing, and that is that the more natural habitat that these animals have, the more of their natural wild prey will be available to them.
00:26:13.392 --> 00:26:13.652
Mm-hmm.
00:26:13.842 --> 00:26:30.630
if there is natural habitat in abundance in the place where you live, they are gonna be hunting in their natural habitat and be less likely to put themselves at risk by coming into, you know, your open space around your, you know, the human habitation.
00:26:30.900 --> 00:26:45.010
Not gonna say it's gonna 100% eliminate the chance, but if there's nothing but lawns and mown fields and pastures where, you know, other livestock, bigger livestock are, you know, they're, they're not gonna have much to eat other than your chickens, right?
00:26:45.040 --> 00:26:47.510
And so they're gonna be more likely to come in.
00:26:47.510 --> 00:27:02.520
And so-- And I do think that folks that live in rural areas, um, and maybe have bigger acreages, you guys have a, a, a really awesome opportunity to give a lot of that land back to Mother Nature, because you're probably not using, know, a big chunk of it.
00:27:02.530 --> 00:27:10.210
And so, you know, you don't necessarily have to get out there on the ride-on mower every week and mow acres and acres and acres of grass that no one's ever gonna use.
00:27:10.210 --> 00:27:20.390
You know, maybe let it convert to natural meadow or even let it, the natural plant succession go and you can observe, like, how a meadow turns into a woodland over the course of a decade or two.
00:27:20.700 --> 00:27:28.450
Can we talk about the mice, rat, rodent, snake circle?
00:27:28.788 --> 00:27:28.948
Yeah.
00:27:29.990 --> 00:27:31.310
I'm not a snake person.
00:27:31.570 --> 00:27:35.520
Bring on the carpenter bees, but if a snake appears, I'm outta here.
00:27:35.714 --> 00:27:38.904
and some people actually do have legit phobias of snakes.
00:27:38.914 --> 00:27:41.654
So, so I wanna acknowledge those two things.
00:27:41.754 --> 00:27:51.604
But with those two things said I'm gonna say something that might be a little controversial and might be shocking to hear, but I'm gonna say it anyway'cause it's the truth.
00:27:52.504 --> 00:28:01.624
Almost 100% of snake species are completely harmless to people, and 100% of snake species are absolutely beneficial to us.
00:28:02.464 --> 00:28:04.094
So what do I mean when I say that?
00:28:04.574 --> 00:28:05.694
I'll start with the first part.
00:28:05.824 --> 00:28:09.264
H- almost 100% of snake species are completely harmless to people.
00:28:10.274 --> 00:28:12.964
there are venomous snakes that could be dangerous to people.
00:28:13.364 --> 00:28:16.934
Um, in North America, we've got, uh, a bunch of different vipers.
00:28:16.944 --> 00:28:24.124
So those are all the rattlesnakes and the copperhead and the, the water moccasin/cottonmouth, same, same species.
00:28:24.134 --> 00:28:27.384
A lot of people think those are two different s- uh, snake species, but they're not.
00:28:27.694 --> 00:28:33.094
And then we also have some, um, elapid snakes, which are a different category of venomous snakes.
00:28:33.094 --> 00:28:35.774
Um, and in, in the US, we've got the coral snakes.
00:28:35.994 --> 00:28:38.844
Other parts of the world, there are cobras and things like that.
00:28:39.124 --> 00:28:43.074
But, um, so there are venomous snakes, and yes, venomous snakes can be dangerous to people.
00:28:43.404 --> 00:28:56.534
But they're the m- they're, they're the minority of snake species, and there's definitely the, the s- the, the minority in terms of the snake species that you might encounter in a typical backyard or even a, in a farm scenario.
00:28:56.974 --> 00:29:02.874
Most of the snakes that you're gonna ever encounter completely harmless to people.
00:29:04.024 --> 00:29:04.984
do not have venom.
00:29:05.144 --> 00:29:08.454
They do not have teeth that can really do any damage to us.
00:29:08.694 --> 00:29:14.214
They certainly aren't ever gonna try to eat you because, w- number one, we're not on the menu, and they're always smaller.
00:29:14.614 --> 00:29:21.874
Um, so what's really going on with snakes when people encounter them is that they are absolutely terrified of us.
00:29:22.284 --> 00:29:24.244
They want nothing to do with us.
00:29:24.284 --> 00:29:28.094
They see us as danger because we are, right?
00:29:28.504 --> 00:29:28.814
They...
00:29:28.824 --> 00:29:30.264
We're much bigger than they are.
00:29:30.534 --> 00:29:32.664
We-- You know, they can't eat us.
00:29:32.664 --> 00:29:33.664
They want nothing to do with us.
00:29:33.674 --> 00:29:43.054
So they're gonna rely on their adaptations to avoid conflict with us, and those include camouflage, away.
00:29:43.094 --> 00:29:47.574
They don't have legs, but they m- snakes can move pretty fast if they feel like they're threatened.
00:29:47.954 --> 00:29:54.254
But if those two things aren't options or are not working, the next thing they're gonna do is they're gonna warn you.
00:29:54.494 --> 00:29:58.634
They're gonna say,"Hey, I'm here." They're gonna rattle their tails.
00:29:58.674 --> 00:30:01.364
Even, even, like, non-venomous snakes do that.
00:30:01.654 --> 00:30:10.134
Um, in, in fact, of the tail to make noise in the vegetation happened before venomous snakes with rattles evolved.
00:30:10.454 --> 00:30:18.254
You know, people think it goes the other way, that the, the non-venomous w- snakes that are not rattlesnakes are mimicking the rattlesnake, but it's actually the other way around.
00:30:18.554 --> 00:30:20.644
But at any rate, they're gonna hiss.
00:30:20.924 --> 00:30:26.174
They're gonna coil up and be like,"Please do not come near me." That is what they're trying to do.
00:30:26.444 --> 00:30:29.374
And of course, we see that, and we're like,"Oh my God, they're trying to kill us.
00:30:29.394 --> 00:30:30.564
They wanna murder us," you know?
00:30:30.754 --> 00:30:32.264
But it's, it's the opposite, right?
00:30:32.484 --> 00:30:37.694
So again, I guess what I'm saying is if you understand the snake behavior, it becomes a little bit less scary.
00:30:38.364 --> 00:30:49.386
And the real key thing here is that All you have to do to avoid potential conflict, and conflict, by conflict I mean getting bitten, is just leave the snake alone.
00:30:49.886 --> 00:30:50.616
Don't go near it.
00:30:51.456 --> 00:30:54.196
are not fast animals that can chase you down, right?
00:30:54.196 --> 00:31:01.496
They can move pretty fast, but no snake species is going to actively chase a human because they're not coming after us.
00:31:01.496 --> 00:31:03.976
Getting close to us is dangerous for them.
00:31:04.316 --> 00:31:15.666
So they're gonna try, again, to use all those tactics to either hide from you, to run away from you, or at the very last ditch thing to warn you, like,"Please don't come near me because if you do, I'm gonna try to bite you," you know?
00:31:15.916 --> 00:31:23.996
But even with venomous snakes, like my, my big tip is just leave them alone and stay five feet away from them and you're never gonna be in any danger.
00:31:24.456 --> 00:31:26.696
Um, and so there's that.
00:31:27.716 --> 00:31:37.396
back to the, the second part of that statement, 100% of snakes are beneficial to us, it gets kind of at your question because snakes are predators 100%.
00:31:37.396 --> 00:31:46.256
There are no snakes that are out there eating vegetation, and most of the snakes that you're gonna see and encounter are eating rodents as their natural prey.
00:31:46.756 --> 00:31:48.026
Some species are eating birds.
00:31:48.036 --> 00:31:55.656
Some species like garter snakes and hognose snakes, my favorite, um, specialize in eating amphibians, so they're eating frogs and toads and things like that.
00:31:55.986 --> 00:32:00.186
But, you know, the kind of snakes that you're probably seeing, I'm guessing, are gonna be the rat snakes.
00:32:00.656 --> 00:32:03.026
Um, and they can be big.
00:32:03.036 --> 00:32:10.106
You know, a, central rat snake, which we used to call the eastern rat snake, and before that it was the black rat snake.
00:32:10.346 --> 00:32:12.756
The biologists and the taxonomists have mixed it all up again.
00:32:12.766 --> 00:32:16.896
Now we're calling them central rat snakes, um, which is probably what you have.
00:32:16.896 --> 00:32:18.316
Um, you said you're in Tennessee, right?
00:32:18.316 --> 00:32:18.626
Yeah.
00:32:19.016 --> 00:32:24.356
Um, at any rate, these are, as the name suggests, they are big rodent eaters.
00:32:24.386 --> 00:32:27.936
They also do eat birds and other small mammals and things like that.
00:32:27.936 --> 00:32:34.686
But, um, but they're, they're coming especially to a farm scenario, uh, because there's gonna be rodents there.
00:32:34.686 --> 00:32:43.746
I mean, inevitably, even if you keep your, your chicken feed locked down, I mean, when you feed them, they're scattering it around and you're gonna get potentially some rodents coming in.
00:32:44.016 --> 00:32:46.306
Um, and same thing, I don't know if you have other, other...
00:32:46.526 --> 00:32:48.986
if you have horses or cows or goats or anything like that.
00:32:48.986 --> 00:32:51.686
But you know, it, it, it comes with the territory, as you know.
00:32:51.686 --> 00:32:54.126
You're gonna have some rodents coming in.
00:32:54.446 --> 00:32:57.056
And so they're just there to eat them, to take advantage of them.
00:32:57.066 --> 00:33:11.322
So my advice is try to brace yourself against that fear and, you know, knowledge is power, and if you actually let those snakes live there, you're gonna have less problems with rodents And as long as you don't try to get near them, they're not gonna mess with you.
00:33:11.372 --> 00:33:17.622
Um, but yeah, the snakes that you, that most people are gonna encounter are probably things like I mentioned garter snakes.
00:33:17.982 --> 00:33:22.022
Um, there's a bunch of different species found across, all across the country.
00:33:22.062 --> 00:33:31.572
Um, and so these guys, again, are eating insects, they're eating earthworms, they're eating slugs, um, they're eating fish, they're eating toads and frogs.
00:33:31.912 --> 00:33:34.722
So they're, they're never really gonna be a problem.
00:33:34.952 --> 00:33:37.092
Hognose snakes, um, are...
00:33:37.382 --> 00:33:39.892
There's the eastern hognose, there's western hognose.
00:33:39.902 --> 00:33:45.602
Um, are really fascinating because they do have a little upturned nose.
00:33:45.872 --> 00:33:46.942
That's where they got their name.
00:33:46.962 --> 00:33:49.492
And they have this expression on their face.
00:33:50.232 --> 00:33:54.512
I, I know I'm probably, you know, this is a tough sell, but I think they're cute as all get out.
00:33:54.842 --> 00:34:01.342
They just have this little angry face on them, like they're constantly irritated at something, and they got this weird little upturned nose.
00:34:01.522 --> 00:34:03.172
And they really are weirdo snakes.
00:34:03.172 --> 00:34:07.082
They basically use, like, every trick in the snake book.
00:34:07.102 --> 00:34:08.773
So they will hiss.
00:34:08.793 --> 00:34:12.373
They will flare out their head to look like a little mini cobra.
00:34:12.722 --> 00:34:17.982
They will, um, they'll emit a stinky musk to try to drive you away if you're threatening them.
00:34:18.163 --> 00:34:24.942
And if all else fails, they'll keel over on their back and stick their tongue out and play dead, kind of like a possum.
00:34:25.422 --> 00:34:26.552
And they're total fakers.
00:34:26.583 --> 00:34:31.552
Like, you can flip them over, and they'll be like,"Nope," they're still there, and they'll, they'll flip back over on their back and play dead.
00:34:31.956 --> 00:34:32.835
That's hilarious
00:34:33.262 --> 00:34:34.563
yeah, it's totally hilarious.
00:34:34.563 --> 00:34:42.603
And so, you know, like, if you are lucky enough to have hognose snakes on your property and you see one, I'm not encouraging you to stress it out and make it do that.
00:34:42.603 --> 00:34:51.152
But again, knowledge is power, and if we understand just a little bit about some of these really cool animals that share the world with us, I think it's a...
00:34:51.492 --> 00:34:53.893
it can really help get us over the fear of them.
00:34:54.242 --> 00:34:55.663
So yeah, there's the garter snakes.
00:34:55.663 --> 00:34:57.773
There's the, um, the hognoses.
00:34:58.432 --> 00:34:59.753
talked about the rat snakes.
00:35:00.072 --> 00:35:03.663
Um, there are a lot of other really neat, tiny snakes.
00:35:03.663 --> 00:35:20.654
So, um, so yeah, I mean, I guess with the, with the snake question vis-à-vis rodents, unlike what we were talking about with the mammals and your chickens, where you really wanna kind of do things to deter them from coming in, I would say bring'em on.
00:35:20.714 --> 00:35:22.875
You know, let, let those rat snakes live in your barn.
00:35:22.884 --> 00:35:28.054
Let them live in the shrubbery and the brush around your, uh, you know, your farm area.
00:35:28.544 --> 00:35:38.294
I think they will sometimes eat eggs, and they might even take, you know, young chicks, so that might be a thing that you might wanna, you know, finer mesh chicken wire will keep them out, that kind of thing.
00:35:38.554 --> 00:35:42.794
Um, but for the most part, they're out there um, they're out there trying to eat the rodents.
00:35:42.804 --> 00:35:43.924
So that's a good thing
00:35:44.660 --> 00:35:53.320
I have a story from when I was a kid, and of course back then we had this old fallen down barn, and Dad stapled chicken wire on the inside of it.
00:35:53.690 --> 00:36:04.570
And h- after the chicks came off heat but they weren't really ready to be turned loose, he made this little, like, chicken wire cage.
00:36:04.620 --> 00:36:07.140
I don't know, it was kind of, like, wrapped against the wall.
00:36:07.140 --> 00:36:09.910
It w- it wasn't secure at all, but it was inside the chicken coop.
00:36:10.350 --> 00:36:11.620
And he put the chicks in there.
00:36:12.010 --> 00:36:20.451
And one day I went in there to feed the chicks, and a black snake had gotten through the chicken wire, ate all the chicks,
00:36:20.701 --> 00:36:22.050
And then was too fat to fit out.
00:36:22.140 --> 00:36:22.650
get back out.
00:36:24.410 --> 00:36:25.980
I know that feeling on Thanksgiving.
00:36:28.580 --> 00:36:33.010
But your story about the one, the snake that plays dead, you said a hognose snake that
00:36:33.239 --> 00:36:34.228
Hognose snake, yeah.
00:36:34.318 --> 00:36:34.638
Mm-hmm
00:36:34.770 --> 00:36:38.320
my fields are run over with, we call them killdeers,
00:36:38.684 --> 00:36:39.094
Uh-huh.
00:36:39.254 --> 00:36:39.544
Yeah.
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:40.250
the
00:36:40.294 --> 00:36:40.585
Yep
00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:42.460
that run everywhere.
00:36:42.490 --> 00:36:43.790
Do they even fly?
00:36:43.830 --> 00:36:44.640
Can they fly?
00:36:44.646 --> 00:36:45.786
do fly, yeah, yeah.
00:36:45.786 --> 00:36:49.797
But they, they're, they're, they're ground nesters, and so yeah.
00:36:49.826 --> 00:36:51.426
They are such cool birds.
00:36:51.436 --> 00:36:52.346
They're fascinating.
00:36:52.346 --> 00:36:55.286
Their, their behavior, and oh, I'll let you finish your story.
00:36:55.426 --> 00:36:56.036
You're probably gonna
00:36:56.290 --> 00:37:02.701
So if people don't know what they are, they, they lay four eggs in a nest, and they look like quail eggs is what they look like.
00:37:03.050 --> 00:37:15.810
And when you're on the lawnmower, the mama will get off the nest, and she will, like, pretend that she's hurt, and she'll, like, run to the side trying to draw the, the lawnmower off away from her nest.
00:37:16.090 --> 00:37:20.110
And so my husband always mows around their nests and, and lets them run over.
00:37:20.110 --> 00:37:22.480
But we have hundreds of'em out here.
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:23.060
I mean, they're just...
00:37:23.170 --> 00:37:25.140
They, but they lay in the driveway.
00:37:25.150 --> 00:37:28.020
They lay all the dumb places.
00:37:28.020 --> 00:37:33.681
I mean, they're not, they're not smart where, where they put their, their nest at all.
00:37:34.130 --> 00:37:35.830
But they got, they are super cute.
00:37:35.830 --> 00:37:38.951
But those eggs are so little, and they don't set for very long.
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:44.250
I can't imagine they're on those nests for two weeks before they hatch.
00:37:44.610 --> 00:37:50.760
And then they're, the babies are the size of little, tiny quail, and they're just running everywhere, all over the place.
00:37:51.116 --> 00:37:51.406
Yeah.
00:37:51.696 --> 00:37:56.797
Yeah, so c- a couple things that you, that you highlighted there that, uh, that, uh, that folks might not know.
00:37:56.817 --> 00:38:00.297
So again, they are ground-nesting birds.
00:38:00.326 --> 00:38:07.817
Um, I think they're, they're actually classified as, like, a, a water bird or a wading bird'cause when they're not nesting, they're, they're more in wetland environments.
00:38:08.096 --> 00:38:15.786
But they look for kind of gravelly, rocky spaces, lay their eggs because their eggs kind of look like little, little pebbles.
00:38:16.244 --> 00:38:16.674
Mm-hmm.
00:38:16.916 --> 00:38:18.166
they kinda look like quail eggs.
00:38:18.476 --> 00:38:24.047
Um, and so that's why they're in your driveway, and when they're in, they're out in the field that isn't super overgrown.
00:38:24.456 --> 00:38:32.156
And so thank you, first of all, for mowing around their nests and not just mowing it over them, which, again, technically would be illegal, um,'cause they're protected.
00:38:32.486 --> 00:38:32.906
Yeah, I
00:38:32.926 --> 00:38:33.236
that
00:38:33.527 --> 00:38:33.886
Yeah.
00:38:33.886 --> 00:38:44.576
And so, um, so but, but you said something really important that a lot of people I don't think, um, u- understand, and that is that the nesting process is so temporary.
00:38:44.846 --> 00:38:46.106
It happens really quickly.
00:38:46.116 --> 00:38:53.496
Most birds, you know, they're gonna lay their eggs, they'll incubate them for, you know, a week, one to two weeks, and then the babies hatch.
00:38:53.876 --> 00:38:54.946
And there's different...
00:38:55.166 --> 00:39:00.216
Birds have different, um, uh, strategies when it comes to their babies.
00:39:00.516 --> 00:39:13.976
There are some birds that have, um, you know, babies that hatch out of the egg and they're, you know, naked and their eyes are shut, and they're wholly dependent on the parent to feed them and, and still sit on them and keep them warm.
00:39:14.386 --> 00:39:20.936
Um, but then there are other birds that have what we call precocial young, um, kind of related to the word precocious.
00:39:20.956 --> 00:39:27.297
And if you have a precocious kid, know, precocious kids are, you know, they're, they're 4 going on 14, right?
00:39:27.326 --> 00:39:30.436
And so it's the same thing with precocial birds.
00:39:30.786 --> 00:39:33.786
They hatch out of that nest and they are covered in fluffy down.
00:39:34.076 --> 00:39:40.286
And once they dry off and kind of orient themselves, they step up on their little legs, and out of the nest they go, and they're running around.
00:39:40.676 --> 00:39:43.906
And they can actually largely take care of themselves.
00:39:44.146 --> 00:39:46.786
They start immediately pecking for seeds and insects.
00:39:46.996 --> 00:39:51.896
The parents don't have to feed them the way that, that, um, you know, that underdeveloped baby birds.
00:39:52.096 --> 00:39:56.166
So, you know, most of our songbirds, know, they are dependent on their parents, right?
00:39:56.166 --> 00:39:57.646
And they're gonna be living in the nest.
00:39:57.646 --> 00:40:03.176
But birds like ground-nesting birds tend to be precocial, um, with their babies.
00:40:03.186 --> 00:40:06.466
So again, quail, wild turkey, the killdeer.
00:40:06.706 --> 00:40:20.277
But anyway, going back to birds, whether they're killdeer nesting in your driveway or they're, I don't know, a robin that has built a nest on your, on your front porch, um, you know, people tend to kind of freak out a little bit, uh, in my experience.
00:40:20.297 --> 00:40:28.036
They're like,"Oh my God, my life is over." You know,"The bird is there and I now have to navigate around that." But I always remind people it's temporary, right?
00:40:28.106 --> 00:40:29.726
A few weeks and you'll be through it.
00:40:29.766 --> 00:40:36.386
And oh my gosh, what a cool thing to get to watch Mother Nature raising the next generation right before you.
00:40:36.576 --> 00:40:37.806
And yes, there's gonna be poop.
00:40:39.056 --> 00:40:40.956
You know, everybody poops, including birds.
00:40:41.027 --> 00:40:42.986
It's not that hard to clean up, you know.
00:40:43.126 --> 00:40:56.596
And what happens is that, you know, most of our birds are songbirds for sure, and, um, definitely, like, the killdeer and, and the, um, you know, the, the wild fowl type birds, they're not reusing the nest year after year.
00:40:57.016 --> 00:41:00.436
The birds that do that are, like, you know, eagles and hawks and things like that.
00:41:00.736 --> 00:41:11.416
So what that means is that once they're done nesting and those babies have fledged, which means they have left the nest, um, or in the case of the precocial ones, you know, as soon as they hatch, they're, they're, they're out of there, right?
00:41:11.797 --> 00:41:15.236
Once the nest is not in use anymore, you can, you can take it away.
00:41:15.236 --> 00:41:16.297
You can remove it.
00:41:16.696 --> 00:41:20.766
Um, you don't wanna do that when it's active, obviously, because you'll, you'll...
00:41:20.926 --> 00:41:23.606
You know, it'll be doom for the babies, but, um, but yeah.
00:41:23.606 --> 00:41:31.356
So again, just a reminder to folks, like, sometimes these, these things are inconvenient, and they can be a little bit annoying, but they're temporary.
00:41:31.856 --> 00:41:33.686
And again, what's the, what's the alternative, right?
00:41:33.686 --> 00:41:39.436
A world where we don't have really cool birds running around that we can see right outside our door, and I know which world I wanna live in.
00:41:40.684 --> 00:41:43.804
And I would like to add, you were talking about hawks earlier.
00:41:44.014 --> 00:41:50.644
When I, I, I have 28 coops, so just so you know, and I have hawk netting up.
00:41:50.664 --> 00:41:50.894
And
00:41:50.990 --> 00:41:51.400
Aha
00:41:51.634 --> 00:41:57.534
put the hawk netting up, I bought the cheap stuff off of Amazon, and it's like a nylon string.
00:41:58.394 --> 00:41:58.734
And I
00:41:58.991 --> 00:41:59.411
Yeah
00:41:59.924 --> 00:42:05.694
it didn't take me very long to notice, as- but first of all, you w- if you wanna stay married, don't buy it.
00:42:06.184 --> 00:42:12.684
But second of all, second of all, the robins and the blue jays and stuff, they get tangled in it, and
00:42:12.698 --> 00:42:13.108
Yeah.
00:42:13.194 --> 00:42:13.784
out of it.
00:42:13.958 --> 00:42:14.408
Yeah
00:42:14.494 --> 00:42:17.585
they end up dying, and you find these dead birds all up in it.
00:42:17.934 --> 00:42:32.794
And so a couple years ago, I spent the money and went up to the rope that is, I think it's an inch and a half, um, squares, and solves the problem, and it lasts years.
00:42:32.804 --> 00:42:38.375
So it definitely, you get your money's worth out of it versus the$20 nylon stuff.
00:42:38.810 --> 00:42:39.240
Yeah.
00:42:39.600 --> 00:42:39.990
Yeah
00:42:40.074 --> 00:42:45.144
I haven't found the first dead songbird in the new stuff,
00:42:45.338 --> 00:42:46.088
That's great.
00:42:46.204 --> 00:42:47.404
it, doesn't catch them
00:42:47.628 --> 00:42:48.038
Yeah.
00:42:48.504 --> 00:42:51.464
And they can come and go and fly in and out of it, so
00:42:51.878 --> 00:42:52.989
Yeah, that's, that's great.
00:42:52.998 --> 00:43:04.489
And that's, again, a great example of what I like to think of as just a little bit of ingenuity and behavior change on our part can solve so many of these, you know, these perceived problems with wildlife.
00:43:04.848 --> 00:43:07.438
So I, I'm, I'm really happy to hear that that's working for you.
00:43:07.862 --> 00:43:08.643
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:43:09.062 --> 00:43:16.112
Okay, so tell us about your new podcast and the kids and, and where to find you and all of that good stuff
00:43:16.280 --> 00:43:16.590
Yeah.
00:43:16.590 --> 00:43:22.210
So I mentioned earlier the podcast that I'm, uh, currently involved in is called Wild Critters USA.
00:43:22.560 --> 00:43:28.960
It's a p- a partnership with National Wildlife Federation and our Ranger Rick magazine and, uh, and PBS Nature.
00:43:29.330 --> 00:43:35.040
And it's a podcast basically where kids get to ask nature experts questions about animals.
00:43:35.300 --> 00:43:39.400
We do focus on the US, that's why the name is Wild Critters USA.
00:43:39.400 --> 00:43:44.880
So we talk about bison, and we talk about alligators, and we talk about monarch butterflies.
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.000
I just recorded an episode about mountain lions.
00:43:48.010 --> 00:43:54.960
So it's all about, you know, uh, you know, the, the, the wildlife that, that live right here in our very own country, and it's fun.
00:43:55.020 --> 00:43:56.780
Kids ask all sorts of crazy questions.
00:43:56.780 --> 00:43:59.230
There's a lot of talk of poop, as you might imagine.
00:43:59.471 --> 00:44:11.940
And, um, you know, but kids have such a sense of wonder and innate desire for discovery that it's such a treat for me to get to do this podcast and, and help them understand nature.
00:44:12.270 --> 00:44:21.800
Uh, because, you know, this is something that we say in the environmental education world, it's that you only protect what you love, and you only love what you know.
00:44:22.221 --> 00:44:32.980
And so one of the things that is a real important thing for the National Wildlife Federation is just giving the next generation the opportunity to know wildlife and to know, get to know nature.
00:44:33.400 --> 00:45:01.990
So, you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that technology exists, media exists, with screens exist, And so for those of us at the National Wildlife Federation and PBS Nature, like want to use those as opportunities to inspire people, you know, to educate them about nature and wildlife, but also to inspire them to wanna the TV off, stop listening to the podcast, you know, put the device down, and actually go outside, and I think we do that on Wild Critters USA.
00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:03.971
So I do hope that folks listen to it.
00:45:04.170 --> 00:45:08.850
It is f- you know, for kids, but I think adults will get a lot out of it too.
00:45:09.181 --> 00:45:15.140
So, uh, again, it's on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, and also on YouTube, and a new episode drops every week.
00:45:16.018 --> 00:45:18.898
So if the kids wanted to send you a question, how would they do that?
00:45:20.052 --> 00:45:21.112
um, lots of different ways.
00:45:21.132 --> 00:45:24.042
I am on, like, all the social media platforms.
00:45:24.442 --> 00:45:24.772
Okay
00:45:25.372 --> 00:45:29.962
know, kids might not be on, on all of those, but if you go to my website, which is...
00:45:29.982 --> 00:45:34.012
I'm not gonna make you spell my name, which, you know, nobody can.
00:45:34.202 --> 00:45:47.322
Um, it's naturalist.nwf, as in National Wildlife Federation, And if you go there, you will find, um, all of my contact info and my social media.
00:45:47.542 --> 00:45:49.802
That's a great way to, to, you know, to reach out.
00:45:50.002 --> 00:45:55.922
But when you get influx of all of these chicken and predator questions, you'll know where they came from.
00:45:56.176 --> 00:45:57.726
I will, and I say bring it on.
00:45:57.726 --> 00:45:57.826
I
00:45:58.152 --> 00:45:58.581
Yep
00:45:58.726 --> 00:46:03.376
love, chatting with people and, and talking about nature and animals and, and livestock and pets.
00:46:03.376 --> 00:46:06.777
I'm a big pet person as well as a wildlife person too, so
00:46:07.932 --> 00:46:09.292
Well, thank you for coming on.
00:46:09.292 --> 00:46:10.452
We really enjoyed it.
00:46:10.522 --> 00:46:11.932
I learned a lot, actually.
00:46:12.292 --> 00:46:12.432
I
00:46:12.506 --> 00:46:13.156
Wonderful
00:46:13.182 --> 00:46:15.042
there was playing dead snakes.
00:46:15.218 --> 00:46:15.668
Yeah.
00:46:15.989 --> 00:46:23.768
Well, I, you know, that's the biggest compliment you could give me, so I appreciate you saying that,'cause that's what, what I'm here for is help people understand wildlife and nature.
00:46:23.768 --> 00:46:30.448
So, um, yeah, I, I appreciate the time and, and, you know, if you ever wanna chat more about wildlife and chickens, just let me know.
00:46:30.448 --> 00:46:31.018
I'll come back
00:46:31.460 --> 00:46:32.310
All right, sounds good.
00:46:32.310 --> 00:46:32.640
Thank
00:46:32.679 --> 00:46:32.939
Yep.
00:46:33.149 --> 00:46:33.649
Thank you
00:46:33.962 --> 00:46:34.472
Thank you
00:00:23.350 --> 00:00:27.120
they'll emit a stinky musk to try to drive you away if you're threatening them.
00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:34.079
And if all else fails, they'll keel over on their back and stick their tongue out and play dead, kind of like a possum.
00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:35.689
And they're total fakers.
00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:40.689
Like, you can flip them over, and they'll be like,"Nope," they're still there, and they'll, they'll flip back over on their back and play dead.
00:00:41.093 --> 00:00:41.972
That's hilarious
00:00:42.400 --> 00:00:44.935
Talking eggs and talking birds.
00:00:46.176 --> 00:00:49.176
Science stories, tips you've heard.
00:00:49.475 --> 00:00:51.856
Welcome to The Poultry Nerds
00:00:53.362 --> 00:00:53.442
There we go
00:00:55.127 --> 00:00:56.847
Well, welcome back Poultry Nerds.
00:00:56.847 --> 00:00:58.606
We are here with David
00:01:00.493 --> 00:01:01.193
You got it.
00:01:01.387 --> 00:01:01.557
I
00:01:01.783 --> 00:01:01.993
You
00:01:02.179 --> 00:01:02.200
Wow.
00:01:02.233 --> 00:01:02.413
it.
00:01:02.590 --> 00:01:03.280
Sweet
00:01:04.706 --> 00:01:06.917
So welcome to Poultry Nerds.
00:01:06.917 --> 00:01:07.867
How are you?
00:01:08.350 --> 00:01:09.181
I'm doing really well.
00:01:09.181 --> 00:01:09.771
Thanks for having me
00:01:10.540 --> 00:01:13.151
So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself
00:01:14.103 --> 00:01:14.402
Sure.
00:01:14.402 --> 00:01:18.423
Well, I am a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation.
00:01:18.753 --> 00:01:24.193
Um, we're one of the oldest and largest wildlife conservation and education organizations in the US.
00:01:24.472 --> 00:01:30.893
Um, and so we, we focus most of our program work here in the US, unlike a lot of other wildlife groups who are a little bit more global in nature.
00:01:31.332 --> 00:01:37.052
And our mission is to unite all Americans to ensure that wildlife and people thrive in a rapidly changing world.
00:01:37.143 --> 00:01:40.902
You don't want all the kids scared to death of all the bumblebees outside and
00:01:41.588 --> 00:01:42.079
Nope.
00:01:42.088 --> 00:01:42.399
Yeah.
00:01:42.399 --> 00:01:45.989
And, and, and actually I didn't really fully answer your question about me.
00:01:45.989 --> 00:01:46.989
You were asking about me.
00:01:46.989 --> 00:01:50.549
And so I, I, I'm a lifelong nature geek.
00:01:50.609 --> 00:01:59.139
I was a kid that, you know, I feel like ever since I was born, was just interested and drawn to animals and the, the outdoors and nature.
00:01:59.139 --> 00:02:04.739
And, um, I was lucky enough to grow up in a time and in a place where we had nature around us.
00:02:04.778 --> 00:02:11.288
And, um, you know, I think I'm kind of maybe one of the last generations of kids that got to just run around outside and play.
00:02:11.658 --> 00:02:26.259
Um, and so I grew up in the'80s when our moms opened the door and booted us out, and we played with our friends, and I climbed trees and caught frogs and, you know, did all that stuff with my sisters and, and all the neighborhood kids, and we came home at dinnertime.
00:02:26.628 --> 00:02:29.598
And, um, unfortunately, that's happening less and less these days.
00:02:29.618 --> 00:02:38.158
And so that's one of the reasons behind a lot of the National Wildlife Federation's work about getting people reconnected to nature and why that's so important.
00:02:38.168 --> 00:02:47.088
But, um, but yeah, I grew up, um, in suburban New Jersey, um, which is I, I have returned after, uh, moving away for many years and came back here a few years ago.
00:02:47.088 --> 00:02:48.769
And yes, there is nature in New Jersey.
00:02:49.138 --> 00:02:54.728
Um, for anybody that just has the, you know, The Sopranos and Newark Airport in their mind, there's the...
00:02:55.058 --> 00:03:02.899
You know, those are just stereotypes and, and, you know, God forbid, Jersey Shore, which by the way, all those people are from New York, but I won't go down that, that
00:03:03.105 --> 00:03:04.805
I always thought that was kind of funny too.
00:03:05.251 --> 00:03:05.550
Yeah.
00:03:05.615 --> 00:03:08.036
of them are from New York and they call it Jersey Shore
00:03:08.350 --> 00:03:14.140
I grew up on the Jersey Shore, and so yeah, there- that's a sore point for, for those of us who actually lived there.
00:03:14.441 --> 00:03:21.531
Um, but no, at any rate, um, yeah, so I just had this innate love of nature, and I got to experience it as a kid, and that...
00:03:21.540 --> 00:03:29.600
You know, I was a junior naturalist at our local nature center, and ultimately I went on to get a degree in human and natural ecology from Emory University.
00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:39.460
Um, and then I, after that, knew I wanted to work in, in a job that, you know, helped, helped the natural world, helped wildlife, helped people get connected to nature.
00:03:39.710 --> 00:03:42.811
So I landed at the National Wildlife Federation 26 years ago.
00:03:43.260 --> 00:04:04.691
Um, and I came, uh, to, to again, work as a naturalist, and I started out with our Garden for Wildlife program, trying to teach people, again, the right plants that you can put into your landscape that are gonna, again, draw in the butterflies and our native pollinators like bees and, and support the songbirds which are declining, and really just make a natural space right outside our door.
00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:16.620
But if you wanna save monarch butterflies, for example, we all can do things, very simple things like planting some native wildflowers like milkweed, which is the only caterpillar host plant for the monarch butterfly.
00:04:17.001 --> 00:04:25.151
And every one of us can do that, and that's kind of an empowering thing,'cause I can guarantee you, when you plant that milkweed, you're gonna see monarchs show up.
00:04:25.191 --> 00:04:43.471
And when people get to see the impact of their good actions, it just becomes really, really powerful, and it's something that I personally feel very passionate about, this idea of, like, local ecology and, and all of us, you know, again, making small changes in our life that will make a difference and make the world a better place.
00:04:43.471 --> 00:04:50.341
And so that's kind of a little snapshot of, of what my passions are and what I do at the National Wildlife Federation.
00:04:50.341 --> 00:04:54.881
So as a naturalist, it's my job to help people understand nature.
00:04:55.211 --> 00:05:00.281
And, you know, naturalists usually work in places like nature centers or national parks or even zoos.
00:05:00.721 --> 00:05:03.871
I do my work as a naturalist largely in the media.
00:05:03.971 --> 00:05:07.461
So I've hosted series on Animal Planet and Nat Geo Wild.
00:05:07.781 --> 00:05:13.671
I do lots and lots of podcasts like this one, um, and, uh, lots of radio and everything else.
00:05:13.671 --> 00:05:19.781
If there's a media opportunity, I'm gonna take advantage of it to hopefully get people inspired to care about animals and nature.
00:05:21.151 --> 00:05:21.850
Wow.
00:05:21.921 --> 00:05:26.471
So do you have like a whole farm or do you like live in a subdivision?
00:05:27.345 --> 00:05:28.185
live in suburbia.
00:05:28.185 --> 00:05:35.545
I live actually about 13 miles, uh, due west of Lower Manhattan in one of the first sort of suburban neighborhoods in New Jersey.
00:05:35.814 --> 00:05:41.845
And, um, yeah, it's, uh, even with that said, we've got quite a healthy white-tailed deer population.
00:05:41.845 --> 00:05:44.564
We've got a mama with twins that lives on our block.
00:05:44.564 --> 00:05:46.945
We see her almost every day when we're walking the dogs.
00:05:47.275 --> 00:05:53.825
Um, obviously squirrels everywhere, lots of songbirds, and every couple years we do have a black bear.
00:05:54.135 --> 00:06:00.935
Usually it's the second-year cub that is leaving his mom and hasn't quite figured out where, where to go, and so this year is one of those.
00:06:00.965 --> 00:06:12.335
We've got a, a black bear running around, of course, getting into trouble, knocking over people's trash cans, and, um, but he, he, he hasn't been spotted in, in, in several weeks, so I think he's, he's sort of moved on.
00:06:12.475 --> 00:06:25.085
So just taking your little spot right there, your house, your neighborhood, what, what do you tell your neighborhood kids about these black bears and squirrels and deer?
00:06:25.145 --> 00:06:26.004
What do you tell them?
00:06:26.362 --> 00:06:26.643
Yeah.
00:06:26.643 --> 00:06:31.413
Well, I mean, the big message with black bears, and, and I don't know if, if you all have them where you are,
00:06:31.587 --> 00:06:31.897
No
00:06:32.443 --> 00:06:56.477
but here's the thing is that Uh, the first thing that I try to do when I'm, when I'm talking about wildlife and coexisting with wildlife, you know, with these wildlife neighbors, as I call them, hel- helping people understand that you're not in any real danger, for the most part, living in a place that actually has healthy wildlife populations.
00:06:57.457 --> 00:07:02.266
always, wildlife will flee from us, and that includes big wildlife like black bears.
00:07:02.697 --> 00:07:05.127
Black bears basically have...
00:07:05.137 --> 00:07:08.737
You know, animals have a flight or a fight response oftentimes.
00:07:09.047 --> 00:07:12.687
Black bears generally have a flight response to danger.
00:07:13.157 --> 00:07:15.447
Um, and what they wanna do is get away from it.
00:07:15.516 --> 00:07:18.097
They'll, or if they can't run away, they'll climb a tree.
00:07:18.497 --> 00:07:19.967
And that typically is what happens.
00:07:19.987 --> 00:07:23.627
Um, and so, so the, the...
00:07:23.657 --> 00:07:28.007
But really that goes for anything, and most people don't live places where black bears might show up.
00:07:28.007 --> 00:07:35.207
So usually for me, it's more helping people kind of get over their fear of, I don't know, bees, right?
00:07:35.297 --> 00:07:37.397
Bees people freak out about.
00:07:37.847 --> 00:07:42.197
And yes, bees can sting, it hurts, and yes, certainly some people are allergic.
00:07:42.197 --> 00:07:44.007
You have to be, uh, aware of that.
00:07:44.007 --> 00:07:54.057
But the reality is, is that if you understand why a bee stings, you realize that it has absolutely zero interest in stinging you ever
00:07:54.790 --> 00:07:55.251
Угу
00:07:55.297 --> 00:07:59.947
are threatening it, whether you're doing it on purpose or 9 times out of 10 you're doing it inadvertently.
00:07:59.947 --> 00:08:07.277
But if you're aware of your own behavior, you can avoid so much of the potential for any kinds of conflict with wildlife.
00:08:07.277 --> 00:08:15.567
And so the story with bees is that bees can sting, and they typically will do that as a defensive, you know, a defensive measure, right?
00:08:15.877 --> 00:08:18.377
And it's only the female bees that can sting.
00:08:18.687 --> 00:08:22.007
over 90% of those bees are not social.
00:08:22.076 --> 00:08:24.667
What that means is that they don't live in a hive.
00:08:25.457 --> 00:08:26.437
are no queens.
00:08:27.467 --> 00:08:28.766
are, they don't make honey.
00:08:29.487 --> 00:08:36.927
And because they don't have hives that are filled with honey and all of their larvae, have no motivation to be defensive to sting.
00:08:37.376 --> 00:08:48.650
So even though the females can, they're not trying to guard a hive And so your risk of getting stung by the vast majority of bee species out there is almost zero, unless you literally pick them up in your hand and try to squeeze them.
00:08:49.100 --> 00:08:58.591
So it's that kind of thing I try to help people understand, because if you just leave them alone and you are aware of your surroundings, always you can avoid conflict.
00:08:58.591 --> 00:09:04.421
And that even is even true of, you know, potentially dangerous animals like venomous snakes or, you know, that kind of thing.
00:09:04.421 --> 00:09:16.171
I mean, if you understand that these animals are out there, that they want nothing to do with people, it, you know, they're gonna be defensive of themselves, but if you leave them alone, your chances of getting injured by them are pretty much zero.
00:09:16.541 --> 00:09:25.461
And the statistics show that you're more likely to be killed by a cow or a bolt of lightning than you ever are from any kind of wild animal, whether it's a bear or a bee.
00:09:25.941 --> 00:09:33.451
Um, so just perspective I think is really important, and awareness, and those are good things that, that kids and adults should all have anyway
00:09:34.723 --> 00:09:36.302
Okay, so let me just ask you this.
00:09:36.322 --> 00:09:47.893
So all these hundreds of species of bees that we have, the one that drives me the most crazy in the barn and the poultry coops and things is the carpenter
00:09:48.153 --> 00:09:48.723
Derbys.
00:09:48.753 --> 00:09:50.052
I knew you were gonna say it.
00:09:51.593 --> 00:09:51.952
So
00:09:52.043 --> 00:09:52.713
with those?
00:09:53.545 --> 00:09:58.004
carpenter bees, they, they can be annoying and they can do some damage, um, to our wood.
00:09:58.004 --> 00:10:04.024
And so carpenter bees are, are solitary bees, so they are not out there forming a hive.
00:10:04.435 --> 00:10:06.144
Um, and but...
00:10:06.185 --> 00:10:10.975
And so this c- is kind of a highlight to, to what the, the non-hive-forming bees do.
00:10:11.335 --> 00:10:19.274
Most of those, the, the 90-plus percent bees that are not social and they don't build hives, will nest in tunnels.
00:10:20.254 --> 00:10:25.945
the majority of those bee species, like two-thirds of those solitary bees, are actually making little tunnels into the ground.
00:10:25.945 --> 00:10:35.735
And it's one female bee, and she, you know, will make a tunnel or enter a tunnel that's already there, and she'll fill it with a series of little chambers in which she'll lay an egg.
00:10:36.024 --> 00:10:42.195
And then she gives that egg a little ball of pollen and nectar that we call a bee loaf, like a little loaf of bread.
00:10:42.225 --> 00:10:43.144
Super cute, right?
00:10:43.383 --> 00:10:43.952
Mm-hmm.
00:10:43.955 --> 00:10:48.835
she builds a little chamber wall, usually with mud, some species will use a leaf, and then she leaves.
00:10:49.235 --> 00:10:54.745
And this is another reason why they're less likely to si- sting, because she's not protecting her babies at all.
00:10:55.014 --> 00:10:56.894
And this is true for carpenter bees, too.
00:10:57.175 --> 00:11:08.335
Now, the ones, the bees that are not nesting in the ground, the one, the other third of those solitary bees are nesting in tunnels in either plant stems or, like, dead and decaying wood.
00:11:08.955 --> 00:11:11.784
So for carpenter bees, that's what's, what's happening.
00:11:12.095 --> 00:11:20.215
They are out there searching for wood that has tunnels in it from termites or, um, you know, or carpenter ants or beetle larvae.
00:11:20.475 --> 00:11:25.245
Um, they'll take those over and they will chew it open wider and they will excavate their own holes.
00:11:25.625 --> 00:11:29.115
But generally, they're first, first looking for that, that rotten wood.
00:11:29.485 --> 00:11:33.144
So my first tip is, you know, your house.
00:11:33.165 --> 00:11:33.745
Maybe you...
00:11:33.955 --> 00:11:42.125
You know, in fact, I just had to do this in my own house, which is almost 100 years old, so you can imagine some of the wood here and there is starting to rot, and I did have carpenter bees.
00:11:42.495 --> 00:11:50.284
So, you know, first and foremost, I would say try to remove that dead wood and replace it, you know, paint it, and that usually does the trick.
00:11:50.534 --> 00:11:55.605
They will sometimes still target, um, you know, le- less wood, if you will.
00:11:55.965 --> 00:12:03.335
Um, and so, one thing to keep in mind is that the carpenter bees can be kind of intimidating'cause they're big bees.
00:12:03.345 --> 00:12:04.865
They're bigger even than bumblebees.
00:12:05.325 --> 00:12:09.845
And they are territorial, and they will fly right in your face, right?
00:12:09.865 --> 00:12:13.045
And it's understandable that people kind of get freaked out by that.
00:12:13.394 --> 00:12:14.264
But guess what?
00:12:14.945 --> 00:12:25.524
That is the male bee, and what he's doing is kind of patrolling a little territory where he knows there's good nesting habitat, so he can mate with the females that are coming, checking that out.
00:12:25.955 --> 00:12:27.855
And remember what I just said a few minutes ago.
00:12:28.105 --> 00:12:29.465
Male bees cannot sting.
00:12:29.475 --> 00:12:30.545
They don't even have stingers.
00:12:30.925 --> 00:12:34.185
So he is all boss and no bite, no sting.
00:12:34.325 --> 00:12:37.175
He can't do anything to you other than buzz in your face.
00:12:37.605 --> 00:12:43.985
So again, right there, if people understood that, I think carpenter bees would be a little bit less scary to people.
00:12:44.295 --> 00:12:54.798
But going back to the wood damage thing, um, some things you can do are to get some, like, screening And affix that over any kind of holes that the bees are using.
00:12:55.239 --> 00:12:59.609
Now, yes, that's gonna make s- you know, any bee larvae that are in there are not gonna survive.
00:13:00.349 --> 00:13:01.999
Carpenter bees are not in trouble.
00:13:01.999 --> 00:13:03.849
They're not going extinct or anything like that.
00:13:03.849 --> 00:13:19.418
So, you know, if it's a choice between doing that and spraying pesticides, I would definitely recommend just going for the manual exclusion device, and then think about filling in those holes with wood putty and/or replacing the wood altogether, and again, that should do the trick.
00:13:20.259 --> 00:13:43.528
Um, and then I would say kinda last resort would be to spray pesticides, but I really encourage folks to use pesticides as a very, very, very last resort because they, they kill stuff, you know, and that's what they're designed to do, and it's oftentimes, uh, most of the pesticides that we use are what we call broad spectrum, which means they're gonna kill any insect that comes in contact with them.
00:13:43.829 --> 00:13:50.278
So that is, you know, the pest you're trying to get rid of, but also the beneficial bees, and which carpenter bees are.
00:13:50.278 --> 00:13:52.209
They're pollinators just like every other bee.
00:13:52.538 --> 00:14:03.229
Um, and but it's, they're also gonna kill the ladybugs and the dragonflies and, you know, all of the other beneficial insects that are out there that you don't wanna kill, the butterflies and so on.
00:14:03.229 --> 00:14:53.549
So I would, you know, really caution to, to not use pesticides if you can.
00:14:53.549 --> 00:14:58.479
But, you know, with carpenter bees, first tip, they're not as scary as they want you to think they are.
00:14:58.709 --> 00:14:59.709
They're not gonna hurt you.
00:14:59.969 --> 00:15:15.419
Two, clean up your rotten wood, and three, just, you know, try and live and let live wherever you can, and if you absolutely have to resort to, you know, methods to get rid of them, use manual methods like replacing the wood or screening, and that should solve the problem.
00:15:16.419 --> 00:15:25.019
Well, you, you wanted to talk about, um, the kids and bringing them into it and being more observant outside.
00:15:25.019 --> 00:15:29.299
That was your point of, of your new show that we're talking about today.
00:15:29.539 --> 00:15:34.949
But the part of why I wanted to bring up the carpenter bees is I've- I'm not scared of them.
00:15:34.949 --> 00:15:35.889
They don't bother me.
00:15:35.889 --> 00:15:38.349
I, I think they're kinda cool'cause they kinda hum around.
00:15:38.819 --> 00:15:45.949
But when the kids go out, if they find the little tunnels, if you look down underneath of them, you'll find a pile of sawdust,
00:15:46.347 --> 00:15:47.257
they will drill.
00:15:47.326 --> 00:15:47.657
Yeah
00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:50.769
do drill, and they leave a pile of sawdust behind.
00:15:50.769 --> 00:15:53.489
So then you would know what is up in that hole.
00:15:53.939 --> 00:15:54.259
Yeah.
00:15:55.109 --> 00:15:55.239
I
00:15:55.359 --> 00:15:56.789
y- yeah, that's a great...
00:15:57.119 --> 00:15:58.528
So, so observation
00:15:58.884 --> 00:15:59.384
Mm-hmm.
00:15:59.397 --> 00:16:09.437
one of the key skills that, that you use as a naturalist, and it's something that I always try to encourage and foster in kids,'cause kids are naturally observant.
00:16:09.737 --> 00:16:11.027
Sometimes too observant, you know?
00:16:11.027 --> 00:16:15.967
When they're looking at, you know, the people at the next table in the restaurant and asking impolite questions, right?
00:16:16.177 --> 00:16:22.927
And so, so but, you know, if your kids are, are, are noticing stuff like that and mentioning it, that is, like, amazing.
00:16:22.927 --> 00:16:23.897
I would encourage that.
00:16:23.897 --> 00:16:24.887
What else can you find?
00:16:25.206 --> 00:16:36.547
You know, one of my favorite activities to do with kids is a nature scavenger hunt, where you literally can just come up with, like, 10 things like, you know, a, a, a round rock, a bird feather, a yellow flower.
00:16:36.836 --> 00:16:38.697
Send the kids out to go find that, you know?
00:16:38.697 --> 00:16:41.477
And once they find it, they can come back and they can get a little prize.
00:16:41.717 --> 00:16:51.847
And what that does is encourage them to go out and, and practice being an observer and practice exploring and, you know, that kind of thing.
00:16:51.847 --> 00:16:52.977
And so that...
00:16:52.977 --> 00:16:55.647
So you mentioned, um, a, a new show that I'm doing.
00:16:55.647 --> 00:17:06.606
I, I'm, I'm, uh, involved in a podcast called Wild Critters USA, and it's a partnership between National Wildlife Federation, through our Ranger Rick magazine that I mentioned, and PBS Nature.
00:17:07.007 --> 00:17:15.886
And in every episode, it's a weekly podcast that drops, for kids, it's actually kids that are asking questions of nature experts.
00:17:16.237 --> 00:17:29.326
So we have folks from the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Smithsonian National Zoo, a different expert on every episode, and kids get to ask them questions about different, you know, different wildlife species.
00:17:29.537 --> 00:17:34.196
It's all focused on the US, so it's all North American US wildlife species.
00:17:34.477 --> 00:17:42.817
And I have, I get an extra special thing to do, is that I get to be in every episode representing Ranger Rick, and I get to answer one question from, from kids.
00:17:42.817 --> 00:17:48.797
So, you know, I've had kids asking me questions about alligators and were they around, you know, from the time of the dinosaurs.
00:17:49.017 --> 00:17:57.426
Um, we have an episode that's about to come out on monarch butterflies, um, that I already mentioned a minute ago, and kids wanted to know, like, how do they find the milkweed?
00:17:57.816 --> 00:18:00.196
You know, milkweed, again, is their caterpillar host plant.
00:18:00.196 --> 00:18:04.466
But how do they know, in all the plants out there in the world, how to find it?
00:18:04.466 --> 00:18:19.336
And the answer is that I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give this one to you, but I still want you to listen to the episode of Wild Critters USA when it comes out, is that the, the female monarchs, they're using visual cl- cues as they're flying around, but they're also scenting for it.
00:18:19.366 --> 00:18:25.596
Their antennae have, uh, scent receptors that they can get, you know, the scent of the plant.
00:18:25.906 --> 00:18:27.256
But that's still not enough.
00:18:27.256 --> 00:18:32.136
What they have to do is land on it, and they have little barbs on their feet and they can scratch the leaf.
00:18:32.406 --> 00:18:46.866
And many butterfly species actually also have taste receptors in their feet, they can actually taste and be like,"Oh, this is milkweed," and not, you know, uh, some other plant that is not gonna be edible to their, their, their caterpillars.
00:18:47.566 --> 00:18:49.356
So it's, you know, nature's fascinating.
00:18:49.666 --> 00:18:57.376
And so that's the kinda stuff that we get to talk about on Wild Critters USA to inspire kids, again, to go out and learn about nature.
00:18:57.506 --> 00:19:07.566
And of course, kids are listening with their parents too, so you probably, you know, e- if you're a parent, you probably know that kids are a really great way to influence parents.
00:19:08.306 --> 00:19:11.456
If kids are asking, moms and dads tend to listen.
00:19:11.456 --> 00:19:13.256
And so, um, but anyway, yeah.
00:19:13.306 --> 00:19:30.276
What do you do with, say, possums and raccoons, and how do you live with those kind of animals, foxes, but not let them eat your that's your pets, like your chickens or your dogs or cats or something like that?
00:19:30.696 --> 00:19:31.966
Yeah Great, great question.
00:19:31.986 --> 00:19:39.206
Um, part of this whole idea of gardening for wildlife is helping people figure out ways to, to sort of live without conflicts with wildlife.
00:19:39.216 --> 00:19:46.586
Because for sure, wild animals sometimes are gonna become problematic depending on your situation.
00:19:46.586 --> 00:19:56.116
And if you are, you know, a backyard chipping- chicken keeper, a poultry lover, and you have, you have that kind of, of animal, whether you think of it as livestock or, or a pet, right?
00:19:56.328 --> 00:19:56.338
Mm-hmm.
00:19:56.426 --> 00:20:03.606
Tho- those kinds of wildlife, raccoons, possums, foxes, hawks can be, can be dangerous, right?
00:20:03.606 --> 00:20:15.046
And so I think, um, the first thing I'll say is that those, those four wildlife species that I just listed off there are not really a threat to other kinds of pets like dogs and cats.
00:20:15.396 --> 00:20:29.596
Um, there, there's a lot of fear, especially with foxes, which I find funny because foxes, the, the, the fox that we're typically seeing in our yard is the red fox, I don't think people-- Most people don't realize that these are not large animals.
00:20:29.596 --> 00:20:34.466
The average weight of an adult male red fox is only 15 pounds.
00:20:35.186 --> 00:20:36.966
Um, you know, they're, they're really just about
00:20:37.021 --> 00:20:37.251
Yeah
00:20:37.336 --> 00:20:38.196
of a house cat
00:20:38.341 --> 00:20:38.641
at all
00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:42.130
They're mostly long legs and big poofy tails, right?
00:20:42.370 --> 00:20:44.540
So they look much bigger than they actually are.
00:20:44.540 --> 00:20:52.110
And their natural prey is things like insects, rodents, small birds, maybe rabbit-sized animals.
00:20:52.110 --> 00:20:58.770
But raccoons, possums, skunks, foxes, they're generally preying on s- on smaller things.
00:20:59.070 --> 00:21:01.830
Um, so in terms of your dogs and cats, you don't really have to worry.
00:21:02.090 --> 00:21:07.430
Um, but if you have chickens, I think my advice, and I personally am not a chicken keeper.
00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:09.430
It is on my bucket list one of these days.
00:21:09.650 --> 00:21:11.240
I wanna get my own, my own little flock.
00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:16.940
My sister is, though, and she's, she's struggled with this a little bit with foxes and with hawks in particular.
00:21:17.350 --> 00:21:29.160
So I think my best advice there is, um, And my advice is to practice really good animal husbandry, part of that is having safe, secure enclosures.
00:21:29.620 --> 00:21:29.850
And
00:21:30.099 --> 00:21:30.289
Mm-hmm.
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:41.550
um, I think doing the extra work to make sure that your chicken coops and your runs and, and whatever enclosures they're in are really super predator safe.
00:21:41.860 --> 00:21:50.890
Um, and again, I'm not a, a super expert on the poultry angle of this, but I do know that, you know, raccoons have been known to reach through, you know, chicken wire and grab chickens, right?
00:21:50.890 --> 00:21:52.180
And that's-- nobody even wants to
00:21:52.281 --> 00:21:53.831
They, like chicken just like we do
00:21:54.100 --> 00:21:54.720
Exactly.
00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:54.940
Yeah.
00:21:54.940 --> 00:21:56.240
And they'll take advantage of it, you know?
00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:57.430
It's a food resource for them.
00:21:57.430 --> 00:22:01.770
They're intelligent animals, and they're just trying to get a meal and feed their babies just like everybody else.
00:22:02.073 --> 00:22:02.513
Mm-hmm.
00:22:02.930 --> 00:22:15.040
um, so, you know, I would use whatever the best practices are that, you know, that the, that the poultry world is exploring and investigating and, um, you know, manufacturing and those kinds of things.
00:22:15.330 --> 00:22:21.770
Um, you know, when it comes to letting your birds free-range, which I know a lot of people do because there's a lot of benefits to that.
00:22:21.770 --> 00:22:22.900
They eat a lot of pests.
00:22:22.900 --> 00:22:24.360
They churn up the soil.
00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:29.970
I think, again, there's best practices there, like them in at night when a lot of these predators are active.
00:22:30.300 --> 00:22:30.590
That
00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:31.040
Угу
00:22:31.040 --> 00:22:35.070
bit less foolproof when it comes to hawks, which can be active during the day.
00:22:35.430 --> 00:22:48.280
Um, so, you know, I think if the hawks are a problem, um, again, the solution that my sister did is that she made a bigger enclosure and generally does keep the birds in the enclosure, and it's got a roof, um, that is hawk safe.
00:22:48.590 --> 00:22:53.170
She will let them out when she's out, um, to supervise and, and hasn't had any issues.
00:22:53.240 --> 00:23:13.810
So I think, I think there's, you know, there's sort of husbandry angles that you can get at, at managing the worst of the predator issues, um, that will keep your chickens safe And I will note too that s- with the, with the hawks, with, with birds, they are federally protected, and it is illegal to, you know, try to kill them or harass them and all that kind of thing.
00:23:14.080 --> 00:23:20.780
Um, so I know some people would like to do that because watched them nab their, their, their precious chickens.
00:23:20.780 --> 00:23:27.660
Um, but unfortunately, you know, for good or for ill, um, it is not a legal thing to do and, um, also not an ethical thing to do either.
00:23:27.980 --> 00:23:45.210
Um, I think some other tips I can give that I think are probably poultry keepers are all gonna, gonna know this is, um, again, it's a husbandry thing, and that is storing your, your food a, in a s- sort of a, a pest-proof environment, right?
00:23:45.240 --> 00:24:02.200
So that you don't, you're not drawing in things like rats or mice, um, or you're not drawing excess amounts of them by not keeping your, your chicken feed stored properly because that of, that can actually also draw in some of these predatory animals because they naturally will be feeding on rodents.
00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:05.870
Skunks and possums in particular are big rodent eaters.
00:24:05.870 --> 00:24:21.060
And so, you know, if you have, chicken feed everywhere and, you know, mice and r- rats have chewed into the, the bins or whatever, you're just, you're just ringing the dinner bell even more for some of those animals that could also be a possible danger to your chickens.
00:24:21.390 --> 00:24:35.060
So if you keep that, that, that, that, uh, chicken feed in a metal bin or whatever, you know, that's, that's, that's pest proof, that will just be one other thing that you can do to help minimize the risk that your chickens are gonna be put in danger from wildlife.
00:24:36.172 --> 00:24:45.472
So back to the possums, skunks, foxes, most of those coyotes, they're all opportunists, right?
00:24:45.652 --> 00:24:46.052
Yeah
00:24:46.312 --> 00:24:59.342
So in my case, I have 18 acres, and so I've got animals everywhere, but the farm next to me won't shoot the coyotes, and he lets them ravage his animals.
00:24:59.662 --> 00:25:08.772
So in my case, I just have to be more predator-proof than him because he's the easier opportunity for the critters.
00:25:09.582 --> 00:25:09.882
Yeah,
00:25:09.932 --> 00:25:10.462
make sense?
00:25:10.672 --> 00:25:13.542
me because they eating his animals, not mine.
00:25:13.766 --> 00:25:14.086
Right.
00:25:14.812 --> 00:25:16.202
So it's fine for me.
00:25:17.515 --> 00:25:18.055
for them though
00:25:18.282 --> 00:25:18.692
Yeah,
00:25:19.146 --> 00:25:19.526
Yeah.
00:25:19.566 --> 00:25:20.206
Well, you're right.
00:25:20.216 --> 00:25:22.836
That sounds like it's a him problem and not a you problem then.
00:25:23.136 --> 00:25:24.216
If, if you're
00:25:24.280 --> 00:25:25.020
of getting at.
00:25:25.020 --> 00:25:31.060
If you, if you can button yours up just a little bit more, they're gonna go for the easier spot
00:25:31.336 --> 00:25:31.906
Sure, Yeah.
00:25:32.846 --> 00:25:33.316
You know what?
00:25:33.346 --> 00:25:33.706
I guess
00:25:33.915 --> 00:25:35.505
Well, that's like with the bears.
00:25:36.045 --> 00:25:40.155
I mean, if, if there's a bear loose, y- you just gotta be faster than somebody
00:25:43.382 --> 00:25:44.972
Yes, that, yes, that is true.
00:25:44.972 --> 00:25:48.042
But, but again, in most cases, the bear is not gonna, not gonna come after you.
00:25:48.122 --> 00:26:12.992
But, um, no, what I was gonna say is, um, you know, another maybe helpful bit of advice on that scenario, building on this idea that, you know, wildlife are opportunists and they are gonna take advantage of a food source if it's there, especially if it's easy to get, um, is maybe a perspective thing, and that is that the more natural habitat that these animals have, the more of their natural wild prey will be available to them.
00:26:13.392 --> 00:26:13.652
Mm-hmm.
00:26:13.842 --> 00:26:30.630
if there is natural habitat in abundance in the place where you live, they are gonna be hunting in their natural habitat and be less likely to put themselves at risk by coming into, you know, your open space around your, you know, the human habitation.
00:26:30.900 --> 00:26:45.010
Not gonna say it's gonna 100% eliminate the chance, but if there's nothing but lawns and mown fields and pastures where, you know, other livestock, bigger livestock are, you know, they're, they're not gonna have much to eat other than your chickens, right?
00:26:45.040 --> 00:26:47.510
And so they're gonna be more likely to come in.
00:26:47.510 --> 00:27:02.520
And so-- And I do think that folks that live in rural areas, um, and maybe have bigger acreages, you guys have a, a, a really awesome opportunity to give a lot of that land back to Mother Nature, because you're probably not using, know, a big chunk of it.
00:27:02.530 --> 00:27:10.210
And so, you know, you don't necessarily have to get out there on the ride-on mower every week and mow acres and acres and acres of grass that no one's ever gonna use.
00:27:10.210 --> 00:27:20.390
You know, maybe let it convert to natural meadow or even let it, the natural plant succession go and you can observe, like, how a meadow turns into a woodland over the course of a decade or two.
00:27:20.700 --> 00:27:28.450
Can we talk about the mice, rat, rodent, snake circle?
00:27:28.788 --> 00:27:28.948
Yeah.
00:27:29.990 --> 00:27:31.310
I'm not a snake person.
00:27:31.570 --> 00:27:35.520
Bring on the carpenter bees, but if a snake appears, I'm outta here.
00:27:35.714 --> 00:27:38.904
and some people actually do have legit phobias of snakes.
00:27:38.914 --> 00:27:41.654
So, so I wanna acknowledge those two things.
00:27:41.754 --> 00:27:51.604
But with those two things said I'm gonna say something that might be a little controversial and might be shocking to hear, but I'm gonna say it anyway'cause it's the truth.
00:27:52.504 --> 00:28:01.624
Almost 100% of snake species are completely harmless to people, and 100% of snake species are absolutely beneficial to us.
00:28:02.464 --> 00:28:04.094
So what do I mean when I say that?
00:28:04.574 --> 00:28:05.694
I'll start with the first part.
00:28:05.824 --> 00:28:09.264
H- almost 100% of snake species are completely harmless to people.
00:28:10.274 --> 00:28:12.964
there are venomous snakes that could be dangerous to people.
00:28:13.364 --> 00:28:16.934
Um, in North America, we've got, uh, a bunch of different vipers.
00:28:16.944 --> 00:28:24.124
So those are all the rattlesnakes and the copperhead and the, the water moccasin/cottonmouth, same, same species.
00:28:24.134 --> 00:28:27.384
A lot of people think those are two different s- uh, snake species, but they're not.
00:28:27.694 --> 00:28:33.094
And then we also have some, um, elapid snakes, which are a different category of venomous snakes.
00:28:33.094 --> 00:28:35.774
Um, and in, in the US, we've got the coral snakes.
00:28:35.994 --> 00:28:38.844
Other parts of the world, there are cobras and things like that.
00:28:39.124 --> 00:28:43.074
But, um, so there are venomous snakes, and yes, venomous snakes can be dangerous to people.
00:28:43.404 --> 00:28:56.534
But they're the m- they're, they're the minority of snake species, and there's definitely the, the s- the, the minority in terms of the snake species that you might encounter in a typical backyard or even a, in a farm scenario.
00:28:56.974 --> 00:29:02.874
Most of the snakes that you're gonna ever encounter completely harmless to people.
00:29:04.024 --> 00:29:04.984
do not have venom.
00:29:05.144 --> 00:29:08.454
They do not have teeth that can really do any damage to us.
00:29:08.694 --> 00:29:14.214
They certainly aren't ever gonna try to eat you because, w- number one, we're not on the menu, and they're always smaller.
00:29:14.614 --> 00:29:21.874
Um, so what's really going on with snakes when people encounter them is that they are absolutely terrified of us.
00:29:22.284 --> 00:29:24.244
They want nothing to do with us.
00:29:24.284 --> 00:29:28.094
They see us as danger because we are, right?
00:29:28.504 --> 00:29:28.814
They...
00:29:28.824 --> 00:29:30.264
We're much bigger than they are.
00:29:30.534 --> 00:29:32.664
We-- You know, they can't eat us.
00:29:32.664 --> 00:29:33.664
They want nothing to do with us.
00:29:33.674 --> 00:29:43.054
So they're gonna rely on their adaptations to avoid conflict with us, and those include camouflage, away.
00:29:43.094 --> 00:29:47.574
They don't have legs, but they m- snakes can move pretty fast if they feel like they're threatened.
00:29:47.954 --> 00:29:54.254
But if those two things aren't options or are not working, the next thing they're gonna do is they're gonna warn you.
00:29:54.494 --> 00:29:58.634
They're gonna say,"Hey, I'm here." They're gonna rattle their tails.
00:29:58.674 --> 00:30:01.364
Even, even, like, non-venomous snakes do that.
00:30:01.654 --> 00:30:10.134
Um, in, in fact, of the tail to make noise in the vegetation happened before venomous snakes with rattles evolved.
00:30:10.454 --> 00:30:18.254
You know, people think it goes the other way, that the, the non-venomous w- snakes that are not rattlesnakes are mimicking the rattlesnake, but it's actually the other way around.
00:30:18.554 --> 00:30:20.644
But at any rate, they're gonna hiss.
00:30:20.924 --> 00:30:26.174
They're gonna coil up and be like,"Please do not come near me." That is what they're trying to do.
00:30:26.444 --> 00:30:29.374
And of course, we see that, and we're like,"Oh my God, they're trying to kill us.
00:30:29.394 --> 00:30:30.564
They wanna murder us," you know?
00:30:30.754 --> 00:30:32.264
But it's, it's the opposite, right?
00:30:32.484 --> 00:30:37.694
So again, I guess what I'm saying is if you understand the snake behavior, it becomes a little bit less scary.
00:30:38.364 --> 00:30:49.386
And the real key thing here is that All you have to do to avoid potential conflict, and conflict, by conflict I mean getting bitten, is just leave the snake alone.
00:30:49.886 --> 00:30:50.616
Don't go near it.
00:30:51.456 --> 00:30:54.196
are not fast animals that can chase you down, right?
00:30:54.196 --> 00:31:01.496
They can move pretty fast, but no snake species is going to actively chase a human because they're not coming after us.
00:31:01.496 --> 00:31:03.976
Getting close to us is dangerous for them.
00:31:04.316 --> 00:31:15.666
So they're gonna try, again, to use all those tactics to either hide from you, to run away from you, or at the very last ditch thing to warn you, like,"Please don't come near me because if you do, I'm gonna try to bite you," you know?
00:31:15.916 --> 00:31:23.996
But even with venomous snakes, like my, my big tip is just leave them alone and stay five feet away from them and you're never gonna be in any danger.
00:31:24.456 --> 00:31:26.696
Um, and so there's that.
00:31:27.716 --> 00:31:37.396
back to the, the second part of that statement, 100% of snakes are beneficial to us, it gets kind of at your question because snakes are predators 100%.
00:31:37.396 --> 00:31:46.256
There are no snakes that are out there eating vegetation, and most of the snakes that you're gonna see and encounter are eating rodents as their natural prey.
00:31:46.756 --> 00:31:48.026
Some species are eating birds.
00:31:48.036 --> 00:31:55.656
Some species like garter snakes and hognose snakes, my favorite, um, specialize in eating amphibians, so they're eating frogs and toads and things like that.
00:31:55.986 --> 00:32:00.186
But, you know, the kind of snakes that you're probably seeing, I'm guessing, are gonna be the rat snakes.
00:32:00.656 --> 00:32:03.026
Um, and they can be big.
00:32:03.036 --> 00:32:10.106
You know, a, central rat snake, which we used to call the eastern rat snake, and before that it was the black rat snake.
00:32:10.346 --> 00:32:12.756
The biologists and the taxonomists have mixed it all up again.
00:32:12.766 --> 00:32:16.896
Now we're calling them central rat snakes, um, which is probably what you have.
00:32:16.896 --> 00:32:18.316
Um, you said you're in Tennessee, right?
00:32:18.316 --> 00:32:18.626
Yeah.
00:32:19.016 --> 00:32:24.356
Um, at any rate, these are, as the name suggests, they are big rodent eaters.
00:32:24.386 --> 00:32:27.936
They also do eat birds and other small mammals and things like that.
00:32:27.936 --> 00:32:34.686
But, um, but they're, they're coming especially to a farm scenario, uh, because there's gonna be rodents there.
00:32:34.686 --> 00:32:43.746
I mean, inevitably, even if you keep your, your chicken feed locked down, I mean, when you feed them, they're scattering it around and you're gonna get potentially some rodents coming in.
00:32:44.016 --> 00:32:46.306
Um, and same thing, I don't know if you have other, other...
00:32:46.526 --> 00:32:48.986
if you have horses or cows or goats or anything like that.
00:32:48.986 --> 00:32:51.686
But you know, it, it, it comes with the territory, as you know.
00:32:51.686 --> 00:32:54.126
You're gonna have some rodents coming in.
00:32:54.446 --> 00:32:57.056
And so they're just there to eat them, to take advantage of them.
00:32:57.066 --> 00:33:11.322
So my advice is try to brace yourself against that fear and, you know, knowledge is power, and if you actually let those snakes live there, you're gonna have less problems with rodents And as long as you don't try to get near them, they're not gonna mess with you.
00:33:11.372 --> 00:33:17.622
Um, but yeah, the snakes that you, that most people are gonna encounter are probably things like I mentioned garter snakes.
00:33:17.982 --> 00:33:22.022
Um, there's a bunch of different species found across, all across the country.
00:33:22.062 --> 00:33:31.572
Um, and so these guys, again, are eating insects, they're eating earthworms, they're eating slugs, um, they're eating fish, they're eating toads and frogs.
00:33:31.912 --> 00:33:34.722
So they're, they're never really gonna be a problem.
00:33:34.952 --> 00:33:37.092
Hognose snakes, um, are...
00:33:37.382 --> 00:33:39.892
There's the eastern hognose, there's western hognose.
00:33:39.902 --> 00:33:45.602
Um, are really fascinating because they do have a little upturned nose.
00:33:45.872 --> 00:33:46.942
That's where they got their name.
00:33:46.962 --> 00:33:49.492
And they have this expression on their face.
00:33:50.232 --> 00:33:54.512
I, I know I'm probably, you know, this is a tough sell, but I think they're cute as all get out.
00:33:54.842 --> 00:34:01.342
They just have this little angry face on them, like they're constantly irritated at something, and they got this weird little upturned nose.
00:34:01.522 --> 00:34:03.172
And they really are weirdo snakes.
00:34:03.172 --> 00:34:07.082
They basically use, like, every trick in the snake book.
00:34:07.102 --> 00:34:08.773
So they will hiss.
00:34:08.793 --> 00:34:12.373
They will flare out their head to look like a little mini cobra.
00:34:12.722 --> 00:34:17.982
They will, um, they'll emit a stinky musk to try to drive you away if you're threatening them.
00:34:18.163 --> 00:34:24.942
And if all else fails, they'll keel over on their back and stick their tongue out and play dead, kind of like a possum.
00:34:25.422 --> 00:34:26.552
And they're total fakers.
00:34:26.583 --> 00:34:31.552
Like, you can flip them over, and they'll be like,"Nope," they're still there, and they'll, they'll flip back over on their back and play dead.
00:34:31.956 --> 00:34:32.835
That's hilarious
00:34:33.262 --> 00:34:34.563
yeah, it's totally hilarious.
00:34:34.563 --> 00:34:42.603
And so, you know, like, if you are lucky enough to have hognose snakes on your property and you see one, I'm not encouraging you to stress it out and make it do that.
00:34:42.603 --> 00:34:51.152
But again, knowledge is power, and if we understand just a little bit about some of these really cool animals that share the world with us, I think it's a...
00:34:51.492 --> 00:34:53.893
it can really help get us over the fear of them.
00:34:54.242 --> 00:34:55.663
So yeah, there's the garter snakes.
00:34:55.663 --> 00:34:57.773
There's the, um, the hognoses.
00:34:58.432 --> 00:34:59.753
talked about the rat snakes.
00:35:00.072 --> 00:35:03.663
Um, there are a lot of other really neat, tiny snakes.
00:35:03.663 --> 00:35:20.654
So, um, so yeah, I mean, I guess with the, with the snake question vis-à-vis rodents, unlike what we were talking about with the mammals and your chickens, where you really wanna kind of do things to deter them from coming in, I would say bring'em on.
00:35:20.714 --> 00:35:22.875
You know, let, let those rat snakes live in your barn.
00:35:22.884 --> 00:35:28.054
Let them live in the shrubbery and the brush around your, uh, you know, your farm area.
00:35:28.544 --> 00:35:38.294
I think they will sometimes eat eggs, and they might even take, you know, young chicks, so that might be a thing that you might wanna, you know, finer mesh chicken wire will keep them out, that kind of thing.
00:35:38.554 --> 00:35:42.794
Um, but for the most part, they're out there um, they're out there trying to eat the rodents.
00:35:42.804 --> 00:35:43.924
So that's a good thing
00:35:44.660 --> 00:35:53.320
I have a story from when I was a kid, and of course back then we had this old fallen down barn, and Dad stapled chicken wire on the inside of it.
00:35:53.690 --> 00:36:04.570
And h- after the chicks came off heat but they weren't really ready to be turned loose, he made this little, like, chicken wire cage.
00:36:04.620 --> 00:36:07.140
I don't know, it was kind of, like, wrapped against the wall.
00:36:07.140 --> 00:36:09.910
It w- it wasn't secure at all, but it was inside the chicken coop.
00:36:10.350 --> 00:36:11.620
And he put the chicks in there.
00:36:12.010 --> 00:36:20.451
And one day I went in there to feed the chicks, and a black snake had gotten through the chicken wire, ate all the chicks,
00:36:20.701 --> 00:36:22.050
And then was too fat to fit out.
00:36:22.140 --> 00:36:22.650
get back out.
00:36:24.410 --> 00:36:25.980
I know that feeling on Thanksgiving.
00:36:28.580 --> 00:36:33.010
But your story about the one, the snake that plays dead, you said a hognose snake that
00:36:33.239 --> 00:36:34.228
Hognose snake, yeah.
00:36:34.318 --> 00:36:34.638
Mm-hmm
00:36:34.770 --> 00:36:38.320
my fields are run over with, we call them killdeers,
00:36:38.684 --> 00:36:39.094
Uh-huh.
00:36:39.254 --> 00:36:39.544
Yeah.
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:40.250
the
00:36:40.294 --> 00:36:40.585
Yep
00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:42.460
that run everywhere.
00:36:42.490 --> 00:36:43.790
Do they even fly?
00:36:43.830 --> 00:36:44.640
Can they fly?
00:36:44.646 --> 00:36:45.786
do fly, yeah, yeah.
00:36:45.786 --> 00:36:49.797
But they, they're, they're, they're ground nesters, and so yeah.
00:36:49.826 --> 00:36:51.426
They are such cool birds.
00:36:51.436 --> 00:36:52.346
They're fascinating.
00:36:52.346 --> 00:36:55.286
Their, their behavior, and oh, I'll let you finish your story.
00:36:55.426 --> 00:36:56.036
You're probably gonna
00:36:56.290 --> 00:37:02.701
So if people don't know what they are, they, they lay four eggs in a nest, and they look like quail eggs is what they look like.
00:37:03.050 --> 00:37:15.810
And when you're on the lawnmower, the mama will get off the nest, and she will, like, pretend that she's hurt, and she'll, like, run to the side trying to draw the, the lawnmower off away from her nest.
00:37:16.090 --> 00:37:20.110
And so my husband always mows around their nests and, and lets them run over.
00:37:20.110 --> 00:37:22.480
But we have hundreds of'em out here.
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:23.060
I mean, they're just...
00:37:23.170 --> 00:37:25.140
They, but they lay in the driveway.
00:37:25.150 --> 00:37:28.020
They lay all the dumb places.
00:37:28.020 --> 00:37:33.681
I mean, they're not, they're not smart where, where they put their, their nest at all.
00:37:34.130 --> 00:37:35.830
But they got, they are super cute.
00:37:35.830 --> 00:37:38.951
But those eggs are so little, and they don't set for very long.
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:44.250
I can't imagine they're on those nests for two weeks before they hatch.
00:37:44.610 --> 00:37:50.760
And then they're, the babies are the size of little, tiny quail, and they're just running everywhere, all over the place.
00:37:51.116 --> 00:37:51.406
Yeah.
00:37:51.696 --> 00:37:56.797
Yeah, so c- a couple things that you, that you highlighted there that, uh, that, uh, that folks might not know.
00:37:56.817 --> 00:38:00.297
So again, they are ground-nesting birds.
00:38:00.326 --> 00:38:07.817
Um, I think they're, they're actually classified as, like, a, a water bird or a wading bird'cause when they're not nesting, they're, they're more in wetland environments.
00:38:08.096 --> 00:38:15.786
But they look for kind of gravelly, rocky spaces, lay their eggs because their eggs kind of look like little, little pebbles.
00:38:16.244 --> 00:38:16.674
Mm-hmm.
00:38:16.916 --> 00:38:18.166
they kinda look like quail eggs.
00:38:18.476 --> 00:38:24.047
Um, and so that's why they're in your driveway, and when they're in, they're out in the field that isn't super overgrown.
00:38:24.456 --> 00:38:32.156
And so thank you, first of all, for mowing around their nests and not just mowing it over them, which, again, technically would be illegal, um,'cause they're protected.
00:38:32.486 --> 00:38:32.906
Yeah, I
00:38:32.926 --> 00:38:33.236
that
00:38:33.527 --> 00:38:33.886
Yeah.
00:38:33.886 --> 00:38:44.576
And so, um, so but, but you said something really important that a lot of people I don't think, um, u- understand, and that is that the nesting process is so temporary.
00:38:44.846 --> 00:38:46.106
It happens really quickly.
00:38:46.116 --> 00:38:53.496
Most birds, you know, they're gonna lay their eggs, they'll incubate them for, you know, a week, one to two weeks, and then the babies hatch.
00:38:53.876 --> 00:38:54.946
And there's different...
00:38:55.166 --> 00:39:00.216
Birds have different, um, uh, strategies when it comes to their babies.
00:39:00.516 --> 00:39:13.976
There are some birds that have, um, you know, babies that hatch out of the egg and they're, you know, naked and their eyes are shut, and they're wholly dependent on the parent to feed them and, and still sit on them and keep them warm.
00:39:14.386 --> 00:39:20.936
Um, but then there are other birds that have what we call precocial young, um, kind of related to the word precocious.
00:39:20.956 --> 00:39:27.297
And if you have a precocious kid, know, precocious kids are, you know, they're, they're 4 going on 14, right?
00:39:27.326 --> 00:39:30.436
And so it's the same thing with precocial birds.
00:39:30.786 --> 00:39:33.786
They hatch out of that nest and they are covered in fluffy down.
00:39:34.076 --> 00:39:40.286
And once they dry off and kind of orient themselves, they step up on their little legs, and out of the nest they go, and they're running around.
00:39:40.676 --> 00:39:43.906
And they can actually largely take care of themselves.
00:39:44.146 --> 00:39:46.786
They start immediately pecking for seeds and insects.
00:39:46.996 --> 00:39:51.896
The parents don't have to feed them the way that, that, um, you know, that underdeveloped baby birds.
00:39:52.096 --> 00:39:56.166
So, you know, most of our songbirds, know, they are dependent on their parents, right?
00:39:56.166 --> 00:39:57.646
And they're gonna be living in the nest.
00:39:57.646 --> 00:40:03.176
But birds like ground-nesting birds tend to be precocial, um, with their babies.
00:40:03.186 --> 00:40:06.466
So again, quail, wild turkey, the killdeer.
00:40:06.706 --> 00:40:20.277
But anyway, going back to birds, whether they're killdeer nesting in your driveway or they're, I don't know, a robin that has built a nest on your, on your front porch, um, you know, people tend to kind of freak out a little bit, uh, in my experience.
00:40:20.297 --> 00:40:28.036
They're like,"Oh my God, my life is over." You know,"The bird is there and I now have to navigate around that." But I always remind people it's temporary, right?
00:40:28.106 --> 00:40:29.726
A few weeks and you'll be through it.
00:40:29.766 --> 00:40:36.386
And oh my gosh, what a cool thing to get to watch Mother Nature raising the next generation right before you.
00:40:36.576 --> 00:40:37.806
And yes, there's gonna be poop.
00:40:39.056 --> 00:40:40.956
You know, everybody poops, including birds.
00:40:41.027 --> 00:40:42.986
It's not that hard to clean up, you know.
00:40:43.126 --> 00:40:56.596
And what happens is that, you know, most of our birds are songbirds for sure, and, um, definitely, like, the killdeer and, and the, um, you know, the, the wild fowl type birds, they're not reusing the nest year after year.
00:40:57.016 --> 00:41:00.436
The birds that do that are, like, you know, eagles and hawks and things like that.
00:41:00.736 --> 00:41:11.416
So what that means is that once they're done nesting and those babies have fledged, which means they have left the nest, um, or in the case of the precocial ones, you know, as soon as they hatch, they're, they're, they're out of there, right?
00:41:11.797 --> 00:41:15.236
Once the nest is not in use anymore, you can, you can take it away.
00:41:15.236 --> 00:41:16.297
You can remove it.
00:41:16.696 --> 00:41:20.766
Um, you don't wanna do that when it's active, obviously, because you'll, you'll...
00:41:20.926 --> 00:41:23.606
You know, it'll be doom for the babies, but, um, but yeah.
00:41:23.606 --> 00:41:31.356
So again, just a reminder to folks, like, sometimes these, these things are inconvenient, and they can be a little bit annoying, but they're temporary.
00:41:31.856 --> 00:41:33.686
And again, what's the, what's the alternative, right?
00:41:33.686 --> 00:41:39.436
A world where we don't have really cool birds running around that we can see right outside our door, and I know which world I wanna live in.
00:41:40.684 --> 00:41:43.804
And I would like to add, you were talking about hawks earlier.
00:41:44.014 --> 00:41:50.644
When I, I, I have 28 coops, so just so you know, and I have hawk netting up.
00:41:50.664 --> 00:41:50.894
And
00:41:50.990 --> 00:41:51.400
Aha
00:41:51.634 --> 00:41:57.534
put the hawk netting up, I bought the cheap stuff off of Amazon, and it's like a nylon string.
00:41:58.394 --> 00:41:58.734
And I
00:41:58.991 --> 00:41:59.411
Yeah
00:41:59.924 --> 00:42:05.694
it didn't take me very long to notice, as- but first of all, you w- if you wanna stay married, don't buy it.
00:42:06.184 --> 00:42:12.684
But second of all, second of all, the robins and the blue jays and stuff, they get tangled in it, and
00:42:12.698 --> 00:42:13.108
Yeah.
00:42:13.194 --> 00:42:13.784
out of it.
00:42:13.958 --> 00:42:14.408
Yeah
00:42:14.494 --> 00:42:17.585
they end up dying, and you find these dead birds all up in it.
00:42:17.934 --> 00:42:32.794
And so a couple years ago, I spent the money and went up to the rope that is, I think it's an inch and a half, um, squares, and solves the problem, and it lasts years.
00:42:32.804 --> 00:42:38.375
So it definitely, you get your money's worth out of it versus the$20 nylon stuff.
00:42:38.810 --> 00:42:39.240
Yeah.
00:42:39.600 --> 00:42:39.990
Yeah
00:42:40.074 --> 00:42:45.144
I haven't found the first dead songbird in the new stuff,
00:42:45.338 --> 00:42:46.088
That's great.
00:42:46.204 --> 00:42:47.404
it, doesn't catch them
00:42:47.628 --> 00:42:48.038
Yeah.
00:42:48.504 --> 00:42:51.464
And they can come and go and fly in and out of it, so
00:42:51.878 --> 00:42:52.989
Yeah, that's, that's great.
00:42:52.998 --> 00:43:04.489
And that's, again, a great example of what I like to think of as just a little bit of ingenuity and behavior change on our part can solve so many of these, you know, these perceived problems with wildlife.
00:43:04.848 --> 00:43:07.438
So I, I'm, I'm really happy to hear that that's working for you.
00:43:07.862 --> 00:43:08.643
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:43:09.062 --> 00:43:16.112
Okay, so tell us about your new podcast and the kids and, and where to find you and all of that good stuff
00:43:16.280 --> 00:43:16.590
Yeah.
00:43:16.590 --> 00:43:22.210
So I mentioned earlier the podcast that I'm, uh, currently involved in is called Wild Critters USA.
00:43:22.560 --> 00:43:28.960
It's a p- a partnership with National Wildlife Federation and our Ranger Rick magazine and, uh, and PBS Nature.
00:43:29.330 --> 00:43:35.040
And it's a podcast basically where kids get to ask nature experts questions about animals.
00:43:35.300 --> 00:43:39.400
We do focus on the US, that's why the name is Wild Critters USA.
00:43:39.400 --> 00:43:44.880
So we talk about bison, and we talk about alligators, and we talk about monarch butterflies.
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.000
I just recorded an episode about mountain lions.
00:43:48.010 --> 00:43:54.960
So it's all about, you know, uh, you know, the, the, the wildlife that, that live right here in our very own country, and it's fun.
00:43:55.020 --> 00:43:56.780
Kids ask all sorts of crazy questions.
00:43:56.780 --> 00:43:59.230
There's a lot of talk of poop, as you might imagine.
00:43:59.471 --> 00:44:11.940
And, um, you know, but kids have such a sense of wonder and innate desire for discovery that it's such a treat for me to get to do this podcast and, and help them understand nature.
00:44:12.270 --> 00:44:21.800
Uh, because, you know, this is something that we say in the environmental education world, it's that you only protect what you love, and you only love what you know.
00:44:22.221 --> 00:44:32.980
And so one of the things that is a real important thing for the National Wildlife Federation is just giving the next generation the opportunity to know wildlife and to know, get to know nature.
00:44:33.400 --> 00:45:01.990
So, you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that technology exists, media exists, with screens exist, And so for those of us at the National Wildlife Federation and PBS Nature, like want to use those as opportunities to inspire people, you know, to educate them about nature and wildlife, but also to inspire them to wanna the TV off, stop listening to the podcast, you know, put the device down, and actually go outside, and I think we do that on Wild Critters USA.
00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:03.971
So I do hope that folks listen to it.
00:45:04.170 --> 00:45:08.850
It is f- you know, for kids, but I think adults will get a lot out of it too.
00:45:09.181 --> 00:45:15.140
So, uh, again, it's on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, and also on YouTube, and a new episode drops every week.
00:45:16.018 --> 00:45:18.898
So if the kids wanted to send you a question, how would they do that?
00:45:20.052 --> 00:45:21.112
um, lots of different ways.
00:45:21.132 --> 00:45:24.042
I am on, like, all the social media platforms.
00:45:24.442 --> 00:45:24.772
Okay
00:45:25.372 --> 00:45:29.962
know, kids might not be on, on all of those, but if you go to my website, which is...
00:45:29.982 --> 00:45:34.012
I'm not gonna make you spell my name, which, you know, nobody can.
00:45:34.202 --> 00:45:47.322
Um, it's naturalist.nwf, as in National Wildlife Federation, And if you go there, you will find, um, all of my contact info and my social media.
00:45:47.542 --> 00:45:49.802
That's a great way to, to, you know, to reach out.
00:45:50.002 --> 00:45:55.922
But when you get influx of all of these chicken and predator questions, you'll know where they came from.
00:45:56.176 --> 00:45:57.726
I will, and I say bring it on.
00:45:57.726 --> 00:45:57.826
I
00:45:58.152 --> 00:45:58.581
Yep
00:45:58.726 --> 00:46:03.376
love, chatting with people and, and talking about nature and animals and, and livestock and pets.
00:46:03.376 --> 00:46:06.777
I'm a big pet person as well as a wildlife person too, so
00:46:07.932 --> 00:46:09.292
Well, thank you for coming on.
00:46:09.292 --> 00:46:10.452
We really enjoyed it.
00:46:10.522 --> 00:46:11.932
I learned a lot, actually.
00:46:12.292 --> 00:46:12.432
I
00:46:12.506 --> 00:46:13.156
Wonderful
00:46:13.182 --> 00:46:15.042
there was playing dead snakes.
00:46:15.218 --> 00:46:15.668
Yeah.
00:46:15.989 --> 00:46:23.768
Well, I, you know, that's the biggest compliment you could give me, so I appreciate you saying that,'cause that's what, what I'm here for is help people understand wildlife and nature.
00:46:23.768 --> 00:46:30.448
So, um, yeah, I, I appreciate the time and, and, you know, if you ever wanna chat more about wildlife and chickens, just let me know.
00:46:30.448 --> 00:46:31.018
I'll come back
00:46:31.460 --> 00:46:32.310
All right, sounds good.
00:46:32.310 --> 00:46:32.640
Thank
00:46:32.679 --> 00:46:32.939
Yep.
00:46:33.149 --> 00:46:33.649
Thank you
00:46:33.962 --> 00:46:34.472
Thank you
