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Message started by Mersa on Oct 31st, 2017 at 7:17pm

Title: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Oct 31st, 2017 at 7:17pm
Warning story about dead animals.

So yesterday I was bored and decided to go practice slinging on a farm near me where there is an abundance of space and good sized rocks .
I was target slinging for about half an hour before I moved on . This was around 1030am.
I moved to the other side of the farm where I usually hunt rabbits with my bow. Thought I'd take a look and see if much has changed.
On the walk to the area with it in view I threw a smallish stone to the direction we usually see rabbits.
Now the hard part , I thought I saw something scurrying off from where the stone landed but as I wasn't really aiming and more just growing I wasn't paying much attention.
I continued to throw more stones as I approached into the tall grass and shrubbery to try stir up some movement. By the time I was in the area there was no sound of anything. I took it as a optical illusion or maybe something flying from where the stone hit.
So I returned to target practice on the other side of the farm.
At around 1230 I returned to look for rabbits .
After a few minutes waiting I decided to look for arrows we had previously lost in the area when around 15 m from where I thought the stone landed I found a dead rabbit.
At first I was certain that it was just a coincidence but when I took a closer look at the rabbit I noticed it had almost no rigor mortis.
This made me wonder.
It seemed to me as though the animal had died within the last few hours ( I'm no rabbit specialist).
So I picked up the rabbit and looked for bite marks or anything that obviously killed it.
The body was surprisingly clean and showing no external damage. After showing a few people to try understand what had happened we had come up with a few different scenarios.

Scenario 1. : I hit it with the stone it died and I found it later
Scenario 2. : I scared the rabbit and it ran into a low fence wire or fence post and killed itself, then I found it.
Scenario 3. : I found a rabbit that was infected with the RHD caliciviris, just hours after it died. Coincidentally where I was slinging earlier.

So to try figure it out I skinned and gutted the rabbit but my skills were no able to tell if the rabbit was infected or not.
So I used all the meat to bait up a marron net (freshwater lobster) try get a feed out of it.
Spent last night on google trying to determine a time of death and get more info on RHD.
But essentially I have no idea.


Appreciate any input

I'm leaning towards me just finding a dead rabbit.(scenario 3)



Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Oct 31st, 2017 at 7:26pm
Bugs
image_051.jpeg (44 KB | 93 )

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Bill Skinner on Oct 31st, 2017 at 9:06pm
It's possible that you hit it but I lean towards #3.  Never killed anything with a sling, I have killed small game with blunt arrows.  They tend to penetrate and leave a noticeable area of bloodshot meat where the impact was.

That rabbit is rather scrawny, I lean towards some sort of rabbit plague.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by slingbadger on Nov 1st, 2017 at 6:23am
Could have died of old age. Rabbits don't really live long in the wild. I think 2 years or so.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by kicktheotter on Nov 1st, 2017 at 6:50am
Weak heart and the stone scared it to death?

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Curious Aardvark on Nov 1st, 2017 at 8:04am
Also don't forget thet rigor mortis is a temporary condition. Flaxibility returns after a a day or so.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Morphy on Nov 1st, 2017 at 12:02pm
Smaller the animal the quicker rigor sets in and the faster it leaves. While its possible you killed it, I think you made the right call on not eating it unless you know for sure.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Rat Man on Nov 1st, 2017 at 1:28pm
1 or 3 seem the most likely to me.  Without more evidence you will never know for sure.  You were wise to not eat it since you aren't sure if it was diseased or not.  I'm glad you didn't waste the meat but used it for bait instead. I hate to see any animal die for no reason.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Nov 1st, 2017 at 6:00pm
I dont think it was older than a few hours . On the farm there is an abundance of big bull ants and flys. Little bunny was super clean not smelly and had no insects on it. It was quite a hot day and I would expect to see the insects having a good feed if it was out there for more than a few hours.
I've never found a carcass this clean in the wild, the main reason I wonder.
Don't think it was old age the rabbit was quite small/young.
As for the meat , I will always do my best to use the whole animal for something if I feel I was part of its cause of death.
Marron trap was a easy pick as I didn't need to feild dress the rabbit too much.

I'm going to go back to the farm today to see if I find anymore infected dead rabbits , if I find any ill be happy to except scenario 3 as the most likely. If not questions still linger

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Nov 2nd, 2017 at 12:55am
Update: No more dead rabbits around at the farm, not that I could find.
Dropped the basket of marron because I'm a kook.
Pelt and lucky feet half done

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Bill Skinner on Nov 4th, 2017 at 11:18am
This is a heck of a time to remember this, I got "Rabbit Fever" or Tularemia (SP?) when I was 14 or so from cleaning the small game I killed while hunting.

The doctors couldn't identify what I had for a while, after they figured it out, and it took a biopsy of a lymnpth node, I was shown to every doctor in the hospital so they could recognize the symptoms.

So, be very careful handling strange dead animals, I now clean animals while wearing gloves.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Nov 4th, 2017 at 9:35pm
Point taken .
I'll be careful.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Nov 5th, 2017 at 4:45pm
So no marron wich is a shame because they defiantly ate the whole carcass. Marrons my favourite shellfish.
Feet cured and dried.
Pelt still in the works.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Nov 26th, 2017 at 12:44am
So here is what I made from this little guy.
Left rear foot as handle and small fur pouch for my decorative sling.


image_057.jpeg (167 KB | 86 )

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Rat Man on Nov 26th, 2017 at 7:43am
Very nice.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Morphy on Nov 27th, 2017 at 9:39am
Looks great Mersa.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Oct 30th, 2018 at 8:28pm
One year ago and the mystery still makes me ponder. Was it me!?!?!

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Curious Aardvark on Oct 30th, 2018 at 8:34pm
well having skinned a fair few critters - had you hit it with a slingstone there would have definitely been internal bruising.

lividity is pretty easy to spot. Generally there are pockets of blood under the skin membrane.

So if there wasn't any of that and no obvious head damage.
Then it was probably disease.

You can't scare a rabbit to death with a stone. And they don't usually run into fences. Not even when there's an 80lb dog rapidly gaining on them who absolutely will eat it while still warm.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Oct 31st, 2018 at 4:17am
Was too long ago to really remember. But no obvious penetration. But the blood vessels were ruptured, but this could happen from RCD as well. Again I'll never really know.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Curious Aardvark on Oct 31st, 2018 at 8:09am
rabbits that die of disease are usually pretty mangy looking critters.
I'm pretty sure you killed that one.

Some years back, dave and I and a couple other slingers got together.
dave brought his atlatls.
So we were wandering through the woods just kind iof randomly throwing spears.
Can't remember who threw it, but one shot aimed at a stump, hit the stump and a muntjac deer that had been hiding next to the stump suddenly ran off.
The spear probably missed by 6 inches.

These random things do happen.

Muntjac are good eating too.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Curious Novice on Oct 31st, 2018 at 8:53am
Considering the relative scarcity of freshly dead rabbits compared to the number of living rabbits, I would simply consider it a much higher likelyhood that your rabbit got hit by a randomly slung stone rather than it just happened to die in the area you were slinging of other causes. Especially considering you were slinging the stone into an area that historically had had a higher density of living rabbits than average. Definitely an interesting story regardless 😂. It reminds me of a time that I randomly slung a stone at a bush about 15-20 feet in front of me in my yard, and a deer suddenly exploded out from it. My stone had barely missed where it had been laying down, and I had been completely oblivious.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by joe_meadmaker on Oct 31st, 2018 at 12:47pm
Thanks for bumping this topic to the top.  I agree, definitely an interesting mystery.  From your description and the input from others, if I had to bet I would say that you hit it.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Rat Man on Nov 1st, 2018 at 3:12pm
   A few years ago I was walking with my late Kali (Husky Dog) through the woods near my house at night.  I don't like to use a flashlight when I'm in the woods at night because it ruins one's night vision.  I was following Kali's white butt down the trail as we usually did and occasionally I'd let a sling stone go back down the trail where we had just been.  After all, who else would be walking through the woods alone in the pitch dark but me.  As we neared the end of the trail I let one more stone go and heard a thud and a distinctive snort.  Much to my amazement I hit a deer.  Why a dear would be following behind us down the trail I'll never know.  I went back and searched the area for a body but found none.  The next day I went back to look for evidence. There was still no deer body or any trace of blood but there were fresh deer tracks right around where I fired the stone.  If I had been hunting and trying to hit a deer with a sling stone it might have taken me years to be successful. As c_a wrote, random things do happen.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Mersa on Aug 12th, 2020 at 7:23pm
This story is still a very hilarious personal joke among friends.

Whenever I was slinging earlier in the day and we see some road kill or a skeleton or something similar my friends say
“Mate you got that with your sling”
Came up in conversation recently and made me think.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by Morphy on Aug 13th, 2020 at 6:14am
;D

Totally forgot about this thread. Wow time flies can’t believe how long some of you guys have been here already.

Title: Re: Halloween rabbit
Post by IronGoober on Aug 14th, 2020 at 9:22pm

Curious Aardvark wrote on Oct 30th, 2018 at 8:34pm:
You can't scare a rabbit to death with a stone.


Jaegoor has made the claim on several occasions that you can and he has, in fact, done it on several occasions.  If that is true, I wonder if Mersa's stone just whizzed by it's head...

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