I was out combining corn today, and caught me a deer in the corn head! Still don't know how it happened, I was looking at one side of the head, look to the other and here's a deer stuck in my head!! It was a little 6-point buck, I'm guessing it was injured or shot for me to pick it up with the head, because there's no way it was too slow for me to catch it. Three of its legs were caught in the snapping rolls. I don't know if it was already dead when I picked it up or if that killed it, but it wasn't pretty! Not really much blood, I'm just not a big fan of having to cut a deer out of my head.
Don't mean to gross anyone out, just thought I'd share some excitement from my day.

 

thats about as bad as when u we hit a fawn wiht a brush hog, we weere clearing for my house at the time bout 2 years ago and a mama dear ran off into the woods as we were brush hoging a maybe 2 week old fawn got mulched but its silbling lived and i still see them round these days

 

Good thing it didn't get into the rotor, I've heard of bones doing some major damage to internal parts. Hope nothing major was damaged.

 

Turtles and Rabbits just "THUMP" when they go through.....

 

It's also pretty exciting when deer get sucked through haybines. Only the little ones though, the big ones kind of make you mad sometimes.

 

haybines, like a bailer?

 

No, the thing that cuts the hay, breaks the stems, and put it in a windrow.

 

I'ved run a few critters through that way, they wait too long hoping you'll miss them, next thing you know they;re in the row behind you, at least if things went well for the operator, otherwise it's down time, and much work.

 

It figures!
Spent the last 2 weeks huntin,in fact I just came in from huntin,in the rain,and snow.I went to all of my spots

Not one pit had a deer in it
Not one land mine went off
Not one bamboo spear had been sprung
Not one heat seeking arrow was shot
Not one animal,(except for that stupid little red squirrel that wouldnt shut up,good thing for him I only shoot what I eat!)in my scope
Not one while flying down the two track in my truck

Then I come here and find out that to get a deer,I have to ride shotgun on a combine.Ok,I guess.Can I mount a turret on it?

 

It'd make you sick to see all the animals that scatter when we finish up a field. Rabbits, pheasants and deer just pour out when you are finishing up the last few rounds.

No, nothing was hurt on the combine, the deer just got stuck in the head. I don't know if the bones would do any damage to the rotor or not. We run an old International Axial Flow, so it's a pretty big rotor. I don't think the deer would even be able to get that far, it was way too big.
Putting a 3lb hammer through a combine does some serious damage!! I did that on harvest a couple years ago, working on the head and someone left the hammer in it, I didn't know it, fired it up and sounded like the combine was gonna explode under my feet! Had to replace all the rasp bars on the rotor and did some welding on the concaves, but they needed to be replaced. The repair bill just to get it running again was over $800, just from a $10 hammer.

 

My personal favorites were always the skunks in the hay bailer. then the snakes.

 

Did you ever thrash a seed sack? If it goes in open end first, it sounds like a bomb goes off in the machine. Wakes you right up! Sounds like there are several farmers reading this FTE website. Our maize (milo, grain sorghum) is standing in the field and the ground is too muddy to support the combine, wind is screaming out of the north, probably all be flat on the ground by morning, supposed to snow this week. Farming is so much fun sometimes, like watching you pay check blow away...... next year....

 

u know whats funny is when u see skunks butts and bunnys butts hanging out or round and square bails

 

Porkupines make a mess of the haybine also, quills everwhere. Just about put a fawn through the swather, but it jumped up and ran off right in front of me, took a while to get the old heart beat back to normal. Never baled any animals that I know of. Had to herd a flock of little ducks out of my way once. Some farmers have a bar across the front of their tractor reaching into the standing crop with short chains hanging down to scare the birds and animals out of the way before they get mowed.

 

square baling on the river bottom years ago was interesting, the snakes that get caught in the bales, still snapping at you as you stack, or getting loose in the barn, scaring the girls that were stacking...