Deerdude said:

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Yea kinda funny how things sometimes come full circle. As a kid and young adult I participated in and supported shooting feral cats around the barn.
Now down at in-laws in Zapata I'm trying to figure out how to attract and keep a mouser or two around. In-laws not pet or animal people but agree it would be nice to reduce snake and rodent presence.

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Whatever you do, do not let your wife know about the cats or get involved. We have a free tire shop kitten that cost me over a $800. All our ranch cats disappeared over a few months, bobcat, coon, whatever, so I asked my ranch manager to find a couple replacements. So they got a male cat from one of their neighbor's in Freer and brought it to the ranch. So now they tried to find a female, when they went to get a tire fixed in San Diego there were a bunch of kittens running around and the owner said they could have any of them they caught. So they brought a flea infested kitten to the ranch and named her Princess. Only problem was Princess turned out to be a Prince. Wife and I go to the ranch a couple of days later, we're introduced to Princess and I told them I am pretty sure that's a male. The next night Princess aka Prince gets completely torn up by Blanco, wife swoops in to savior mode and vet visit, check up, shots, surgery and medication later we leave out of vets office with an $800 tire shop cat who now lives with us.

That would be daughter you are talking about. Caught or actually her dog caught a feral kitten in my semi rural neighborhood. Likes to hunt stuff and fairly successful. Brought in a bat one morning, and have I mentioned their dog door? So rabies testing and isolation. Cleared but expense stands.
Next comes in one morning and won't eat without throwing everything up. Goes on for several days and ends up at vet. Testing, three days stay, and a transfusion later the cats out on the hunt again. Pretty sure that one ran about what you mentioned.
Wife on the other hand I'd like in-laws in Zapata, no pets or animals. But complain about snakes and rodents.

What kind of ranch manager do you have that cannot tell the difference between a boy or girl kitten?
He a red raider grad or something??

CanyonAg77 said:

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Same city folks who run 10,000,000 lumens in "security lights" all night long? My barn is 1/2 mile off the highway, and no lights. It disappears after sunset. Meanwhile, the neighbor's house is visible for 10 miles

If you are afraid of nature and the dark, don't move to the country.

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People from CA bought the place across the street. There are always at least 13 outdoor lights on there now. When I sat down in my living room to watch a movie one night and couldn't see the screen because their new slightest movement motion activated, only slightly dimmer than the sun LED driveway light was washing out my TV I had enough. Knocked on the door and thank goodness they turned it off for the night and turned the angle the next day, no propane cannon required.

Wow. You're lucky that escape didn't turn out like the one in Centerville in 2022 when the TDCJ escaped prisoner Gonzalo Lopez eventually killed Mark Collins and his 4 grandsons at their weekend ranch after being on the run in the same general area for 3 weeks.

Will never understand how TDCJ, area Leo's and the Texas Rangers never caught that guy in 3 weeks. In prior decades they would have stayed on his trail 24/7 until he was caught.

Peacocks are big and tough birds. Shoot with a pellet or BB gun to have them stay away.

Thanks for some of the ideas. I am not a "city slicker", born and raised country boy but this a new property for us and I have never come across peacocks before. I have heard they help with snake control and don't mind them hanging around the property but was just looking for ways to keep them off the porch or roof.

I think one of my boys still has a paint ball gun, so I might give that a try. That Amazon motion activated sprinkler is interesting as well.

Thanks

A strand of electric fence run just above the peak of barn roof might be fun to watch.

I like the paint ball idea….

BTW, I heard a paint ball story recently. So a buddy lived near Brownsville for 5-6 years when they were in jr high and high school (this was 20 plus years ago). He said some guys were always up to no good. One night they are driving around drinking beer and one of their friends buddies says do you guys to watch the transvestites yell and run? He didn't know what they were talking about but said yes. So they drive into Brownsville where all the ******s come across the border and hang out on the American side on weekends. His friend pulls out the paint ball gun and starts shooting towards them, they all start screaming and yelling and running off in their dresses and high heels (these people may have been cross dressers too he didn't know) One is trying to run off and breaks his high heel shoes but keeps running.. Anyway… I'm not sure if the guy was trying to hit them or just run them off.. but they would go back to the other side of the border. lol

SoTxAg said:

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Friend had the same issue, no need to kill, a few shots with paintball gun made them eventually steer clear.

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Get one of these. Our dogs have gotten into a bad habit of barking at the neighbor. A couple of pops with this in the butt have solved the problem. Pretty accurate also. My sons like this is select fire!

Orby gun:

Peacocks love cat food, so if you are feed cats on your front porch that will pull in the Peacocks. Ours also like to look in the living room windows, so just shutting the blinds tended to keep them off the porch. Not sure where ours came from but my wife and I love them. I've never seen an animal with more personality.