05/22/08 Nasty Neighbors

Sometimes neighbors can be unpleasant to get along with. Sometimes they can be downright ugly. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back to tell you about some nasty neighbors. It's quite a neighborhood out there in the sagebrush and bunchgrass pastures. Horses and cattle coexisting with coyotes, badgers, mice, ants, snakes, bobcats, deer, cougars and all kind of birds. Mostly horses and cattle get along fairly well with everyone else, but at times conflicts arise and they are usually pretty dramatic. Like coyotes eating on a calf while its only partially out of the cow having a difficult birth and then eating on the live cow. We haven't seen any documented cougar kills of livestock on our place yet, but the deer herd is dwindling and the cougar population is higher than I can ever recall. That seems like a recipe for problems for horses and cattle. One night as I watched the horses come in for water, I noticed one young horse came in quite a ways behind the bunch. That can be typical of young playful horses that get distracted by one adventure or another. As this horse headed to water the other horses ran him off, which was different. He really didn't act quite right and when I got closer, I could see his swollen head and two perfect fang marks on his nose. Those other horses didn't like his looks or smell. Well, the veterinarian gave the horse antihistamine and antibiotics and he recovered but that bay colt will testify rattlesnakes make nasty neighbors. I'm Jeff Keane.