# Farm "Horror" Stories!



## Karma (Feb 1, 2012)

I scare super easily and have had incidents like this with everything from intruder shaped coat racks to crouching-ready to pounce coyote shaped mounting blocks to bear shaped atvs. I'm leasing a horse at a new barn and before this morning I had not been exposed to the barn in the dark. I headed for the tack room on arrival to grab the stuff I needed to ride and the saddle was on a low rack below the window and the lights are out in the tack room so I was doing this all by flash light. I bent down to gather it up and when I stood I was looking out the window into a giant floating white face with eyes! I screamed extremely loud about 4 times before gaining enough sense to shine my light out to reveal it was only a black and white paint broodmare standing outside the window in her turnout. Woke up the poor barn owner with my screams but they had a good laugh over the story and me being completely mortified. She shared a few of her "farm freakout" stories which made me laugh a lot so I thought it might be fun to share.


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## aggieterpkatie (Feb 1, 2012)

I would have been scared at a floating face too!

I tend to freak out a little easily too.  When I was in my early 20's I worked on a beef farm and was responsible for the late night (midnight) calving checks.  I would have to get in the farm truck, drive to the field, get out, open gates, etc.  I would be all alone out there w/ the wind blowing creaky gates, etc.  Freaked me out.  Then if a cow was calving I'd have to wait to make sure all was well, so many a night I slept out in the truck in the middle of the field.  I'd make sure to lock the truck doors....as if someone would be waiting out in the middle of a pasture field to attack me or something.


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## Cricket (Feb 5, 2012)

On the dairy farm I work on, we occasionally lose newborn calves.  (Born outside, coyotes).  One morning I was scraping out a dark back corner of the barn and found what I thought was a tiny calf skeleton.  Row of little ribs, little white, soft hoofs.  Very sad and on the edge of blubbering.  My boss came and looked at my 'find'--it was white mushrooms, curving towards the light and the little 'hooves' were the caps, which had been pushed over.


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## CYGChickies (Feb 15, 2012)

When we first decided to farm our old tin barn had sat empty for at least five years or more and was surrounded by a jungle of tick-infested weeds. It was dark and mostly closed up at the time and we were walking through for the first time. We get almost to the opposite end and hear this loud loud whirring like a thousand phones on vibrate. I look up to see a huge cloud of red wasps and we run for it!

When the exterminator shows he explains that the barn had beneficial mason bees (the loud noise I heard) and dirt dobbers (my red wasps). It was the first of many mistaken animal identities on my way to farm woman. The second was the pigmy rattlesnake (baby chicken snake) on my kitchen floor. Baby chicken snakes look suspiciously like young rattlers to the inexperienced! I hate snakes!

CYG


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## Teeah3612 (Feb 15, 2012)

I don't park in the driveway at home because my son rutted it out with his service truck and I drive a low to the ground car. So, I was walking out the driveway to my car about a month ago in the dark. I have a small flashlight, but it only lights enough for me to see my footing. All of a sudden I hear several somethings go running across the road in front of me, just outside of the circle of light. It scared me, until I caught sight of the white tail heading up the hill. I had spooked a herd of deer that was feeding in the pasture beside the road. Of course, with all the talk of coyotes, deer was not the first thing that went through my mind.


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## PattySh (Feb 15, 2012)

Last fall I got 2 barncats. We keep them in the tackroom this winter, let them out while doing chores and call them back in before we leave the barn. One cat is orange and the other black and white.  One nite while dark outside I had the goat door slightly ajar and when closing it I noticed the black and white cat just outside. Upon reaching my arm out the door to grab him, my daughter hollered from the other side of the barn that she had Cow, the black and white cat. Yanking my arm back in and peering out, looking at me was the biggest  (and cleanest) skunk I had ever seen. Needless to say my hair stood up, boy was I lucky not to have been sprayed. The skunk just went about his business.


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## secuono (Feb 15, 2012)

Skunks do not spray the instant something spooks them. They go through a whole list of defense tactics and spraying is the last resort, it's a very valuable thing to them and they don't like to waste it. They stomp their front feet, false charge, hiss, stand on their front feet and eventually turn to show their bum and will spray if you just keep at it. 
I had a little skunk in my trap the other day, silly thing, I wasn't hunting them. Took me 20min to coax the little guy out, but he showed no aggression, just confusion as to why I wanted him to leave the 'burrow' he had found. 

Mice flying across the floor in the barn still spook me, even in broad daylight... :/ We have foxes living at the back of our property, so anytime I'm outside in the dark and I hear any freaking little thing, I think it's the fox, but it's just the wind, sheep, horses, mice, other cute little animal...lol. Plus I have more of a chance to run into a rabid fox in the daytime than at night...


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## Chirpy (Feb 15, 2012)

We had been having issues with a skunk coming into the barn every night after dark.    I was out doing chores one night in a mostly dark barn (only lit by moonlight) as my only light bulb had burned out.  I turned around with a hand full of hay and found myself inches away from a black and white fur ball.... I froze and my heart just dropped... then he meowed for attention.   It was our really big black and white barn kitty; his body is actually black with a partial white strip running down the middle of it.   

Bad kitty!   Don't be sneaking up on me like that!!


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## Genipher (Mar 5, 2012)

A couple days ago I was in the shed getting some oats for the rabbits. Some "thing" ran behind my legs, escaping to the backyard. Never knew I could scream so loud! I'm assuming it was one of the stray cats that like to roam our yard (grumble-grumble!) but my _first _thought (when I screamed like a little girl!) was that it was a raccoon...


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