On Easter Monday there was a kitty commotion. Grumpy is our door guard, and sometimes she behaves like there is a cat outside and there *is* and other times she behaves that way and I can see nothing at all. But this time, there was quite a sight to be seen! And she was freaking out. I looked out the window and dropped everything I was doing, ran out the back and told The Other Half to put down the hose and follow me.
I’d read on Facebook that a property nearby had a resident Echidna and it had dropped in to visit.
It climbed up on the windowsill to stare at Grumpy, and you can see Grumpy was Not Amused, or perhaps just not sure what the heck this was. But it did not just want to visit us in the front yard, and promptly went and dug under the fence. Seeing what was likely to happen, we had already locked the chooks up. The minute this thing climbed under the fence, the girls went crazy, side eye-ing, bagerking and clucking up a storm.
It was starting to get dark, so something had to be done. Lucky we have a country farm boy living here, and lucky he is a welder and had some serious gloves handy. You do not want to handle one of these creatures without major protection.
The first thing they do is try to dig themselves in. They are very determined creatures, but so is The Other Half.
This lovely creature was relocated back to the property it lives on. :)
The last photo shows how truly terrible their spines are. Lucky that they aren’t aggressive and only eat ants and grubs.
The claws and spines do look vicious.
Wow! That requires some SERIOUS gloves.
Seriously cute!!