Moosewatch.com

End of Food

Pook — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:19:36 +0000

There are just 4 more bags to go of the moose food I bought last year. I don’t have the funds to buy any more so the web cam will close down this week when I finish the last bag.

Happy New Year Antler - Updated

Pook — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:34:24 +0000

There have been a cow with a calf, a lone cow and a bull here since Christmas. On New Year’s Eve a second bull showed up after dark. He promptly dropped an antler the next day which I found this morning.

The antler measures 32″ tip to tip and weighs in at 7 lbs 2 oz. As of this evening the other antler is in tact.

UPDATE:
The second antler was dropped over 84 hrs later early Thursday morning, Jan 5, right next to the house. It measures 30″ and weighs 6 lbs 15 oz.

YouTube Videos

Pook — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:04:45 +0000

Have just started seeing moose in my yard the past week. So I’ve been taking some short video shots with the iphone and posting them on YouTube. You can see them at http://www.youtube.com/user/PCMooseWatch. I won’t bother to post here each time I upload one. You’ll just have to check the YouTube page.

On another note, the PayPal Donation button proved to be a royal pain. Paypal wouldn’t let me separate that money from my own so I deleted the button. More trouble than it was worth unfortunately.

Sorry!

Pook — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:35:11 +0000

Am having internet connection problems. It comes and goes. Repairman won’t be here until Monday. The dish may need adjustment.

Donations

Pook — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:29:22 +0000

I wanted to thank the eleven people who to date have donated $405 towards the moose food. This is extremely generous of them and greatly appreciated.

The snowfall so far this year is above average. I’ve got over 4 ft but less than 1000 ft below me it’s only about a foot deep. The snow is still soft and hasn’t set up a crust but it will shortly with these sunny days and that will make walking up here difficult for Alfalfa especially with his hooves. So I feel it is in his best interest to stop feeding him and have him migrate down lower where the others have gone. He’ll have plenty of twigs to browse on down there and the walking will be a lot easier. I’ll save the moose food for next winter when I have more than just one moose and the web cam can show some interaction among them. So I’m going to turn off the web cam for the season Friday night.

This morning Alfalfa is behind some trees where I can’t get a good shot of him.

It’s Arrived

Pook — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 23:53:25 +0000

The Mazuri Moose Maintenance that is. Many thanks to Jeff at the IFA store in SLC for making it happen.

Happy Holidays

Pook — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:35:05 +0000

I’m down to one moose this morning, Alfalfa. For the past week there have just been two in my yard, Alfalfa and a young bull. Urkel left over 2 weeks ago. No sign of Scarface this year. He may have been the biggest moose around this area and thus a temptation to redneck poachers.

I’m glad those of you in warmer climates are enjoying the winter weather. I don’t tire of its beauty.

The webcam will not be running tomorrow through Monday so I can enjoy the holiday weekend. Hopefully Alfalfa will still be here next week, With my luck he’ll leave and then the moose food will arrive.

Alfalfa’s Hooves

Pook — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:54:49 +0000

Here’s the best shot to date of his front hooves. You can see how the inside half of each hoof ends normally and the outside has elongated.

His broken antler is due to fighting during the rut. You may occasionally see two bulls sparring on the webcam. During the mating season, the rut, they fight for real. I believe Scarface’s rear end wound several years ago was most likely a puncture wound from another bull’s antler.

Elongated Moose Hooves

Pook — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:13:31 +0000

Tracy in New Hampshire googled and found an article about elongated moose hooves. After reading the article and then googling “laminitis” I came to the conclusion that I may well be responsible for Alfalfa’s condition since I feed them hay and the horse food that I give them contains grain which may contribute to this condition. Needless to say the thought that I may have harmed any of them has made my stomach churn.

So I’m going to stop feeding hay and horse food. I’ve offered the bales I have to one of my friends with horses. I’ve ordered 80 bags of Purina’s Mazuri Moose Maintenance from the IFA store down in Salt Lake. Since they don’t stock it normally I can’t just run down to Salt Lake for more when I run out which is what I’m use to doing with the horse food. Hence I placed one large special order. I had ordered the Moose Maintenance once before back in about 2002 from another dealer. The difficulty in getting it made the horse food so much easier. The moose food should be at the IFA store a week from Friday. It has to come from Missouri where Purina is located. I presume the brand name Mazuri is just a phonetic like spelling of the state name.

The moose food is twice the price of the horse food I’ve been using so I’m going to set up a PayPal donation link.

Alfalfa

Pook — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:03:21 +0000

Having identified Urkel I next photographed the moose with the broken antler. I thought I saw a nick in the left side of his left ear in the binoculars which looked like what I found on Alfalfa last year. Sure enough! In fact he has some new nicks on the right side of his right ear now. So this makes two years in a row that he has broken an antler.

A friend was here yesterday afternoon when I was feeding the moose. He noticed that there was something strange about Alfalfa’s front hooves. The left side of his left front hoof and the right side of his right front hoof have grown out front about 5-6″! They are flopping in front of him. The poor guy has to walk like he is wearing swimming flippers. How did I not see this before? Anyway I will try to get some close up shots to show you.