Interesting morning on the schoolbus

[Wildflower]

Well this morning started out like any other day until I got to one of my stops and could not figure out why my student was laughing and pointing to the bus tire. I asked him what was so funny and he said you hit a porcupine and the quills are in your tire, I said I will look when I get to school. When I got to school this is what I found.

 

[thecfarm]

I wonder if those quills will draw into the tire? No matter what,one less of them things.  ;D

[drobertson]

Mercy sakes! I never would have thought this, those rascals must be bad news,     david

[WH_Conley]

I wouldn't have thought of it either. Will they work deeper with the movement of the tire?

[DaleK]

I wouldn't have thought of it either. Will they work deeper with the movement of the tire?

Yes. Get them out and hope for the best (probably even better, take the tire off, take them out and put a boot inside that spot)

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I've never seen anything like that. 

[thecfarm]

I see them things dead in the road quite often around here. I try very hard not to hit one with a car,dead or alive. I always wondered if the tire is no good after the hit. But I suppose it does matter how they are hit too.

[Tim Lea]

WOW would not have thought that..

[Billyboy]

Yes I have seen that before.... and dad always told us never to run over them and that the tire will just keep going flat in time after you fix it.. tho I have never proven that.

I only hit one once and just chucked the tire cos I hate fixing the things...

[Den Socling]

By design, those quills go in one direction. Ever try to pull them out of a dog? It's a bloody, nasty job.

[thecfarm]

I pulled them out of 2 dogs I had. One dog got into a baby porcupine. Those quills are just as fine as the hair on your head,but the quills still have the barbs in them. I had to take him to the vet and they put him under. I got out most of them,about 20-30. I could see those fine ones inside his month,but as soon as the plier touched them,he would jerk his head just a little. I even had to carry one dog out of the woods. He had touched the porcupine with his paw.

[m wood]

had 2 german shepherds that got a taste for them.  I've been told, and seen it first hand, that ceratain dogs keep going after them because they cant get the best of them.  I pulled every quill i could through the inside of their mouths then off to the vet we went.  Those tree killers get the 22 whenever I see them.  That was in Oregon, I never see them in my area of NY.

[Chuck White]

On my brothers 300 acre parcel, they took care of 45 quilly pigs last year!

[Magicman]

 :D  That is one way to generate "show and tell" interest with the students.   ;D

[easymoney]

i do not remember seeing any porkies around here but we have plenty of armadillos. they are road kill a lot. i think they followed the mexicans to this area. :D

[Wildflower]

The kids were very interested in the picture I took. I have the quills, I am going to try and use them in a project.  ;D

[Philmo]

Wow, that looks kind of strange. I wonder how it happened that the porcupine touched the wheel and not the front of the bus. Maybe the porcupine crashed into the bus and not the other way around.

[Magicman]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum Philmo.  How about an intro thread and sharing some of your sawing/lumber interest  ???   

[r.man]

Porcupines will try to eat a tire. They will not eat much of any one tire but we once had one get into a storage area that held tires good enough for tractors or wagons and the porc ate part of every sidewall in the room. Had to throw out over ten tires. I have adopted my fathers stance on porcupines, kill any around civilization and leave the ones in the bush alone. I have known them to eat both tires and the siding on a cottage.

[Cedarman]

With all those quills, it is a wonder they make babies.

[barbender]

I've read that researchers have found that most porcupines have healed fractured bones, presumably from falling out of trees. I usually don't bug them as long as they stay away from the house, I don't want the dogs getting into them. They can damage a lot of timber sometimes, it seems some years they do more bark eating than others. Oh, the researchers I mentioned said that porcupines breed just like you would expect- very carefully :

[barbender]

A crazy story, I had a great uncle that had a tame pet porky, Uncle would watch TV and the thing would come crawl on his LAP. I guess it would even make a purring noise when he pet it I am not making this up, I never saw it myself but many family members saw him with that crazy thing (or maybe Uncle was the crazy thing). The porcupine was free to come and go as it pleased, and after it had been absent for a while Uncle saw porky  in the yard one day, Uncle got porky in the house, but porky seemed not quite himself. Then Uncle saw another porky outside, it turned out to be his pet one. The more the merrier I guess : As you can imagine, my uncle was quite a character- even the porcupines didn't quite know how to deal with him