Spring means baby mammals....

It's been a mammal-rific weekend around these parts. Wild fuzzy animals are everywhere. It started with an odd stray dog/hyena thing in our driveway. Later, a raccoon (a big, fat, ugly one) was caught in the act of trying to eat our baby turkeys. We were out for evening poultry chores and, when we went into the garage to check on the turks, we saw a striped fuzzy tail slink away from the brooding box and into a corner.

Boo.

The chicks are all ok. The raccoon is not. Predator defense is not fun.

But look! A baby bunny!

Later that same evening...Bill (at the insistent urging of Sugar Pie) discovered a momma opossum and her SEVEN babies in our garage. We've had opossums around for a while without any harm to the birds, but they are known to eat baby birds, steal eggs and sometimes attack mature hens. To the momma opossum's great benefit, her babies were adorable and Bill is a softy. We spent nearly an hour gathering them all up in a garbage can and then transported them back to our woods. They were given a stern talking-to and told that there would be some serious trouble if they messed with our birds.

As the momma opossum headed off into the woods with 7 babies clinging to her back, Bill swears she turned back toward him - tear in her eye - to ask why she was being thrown out on the streets, a single mom with 7 mouths to feed.

But look! A baby bunny!

This little bundle was spared a dramatic end in the chicken pen. Bill was out scything the tall grass in the pen (rather than using a weedwacker or lawn mower) when he found the baby bunny. We made him pose for some photos, contemplated keeping him, but eventually let him go.

Adorable.

But he's been warned. Before we let him go, he was given a demonstration of what might happen if we caught him snooping around our garden: