Porcupine with baby

[woodroe]

Out back doing some trail work and up in an oak tree had a unusual sighting of a Porcupine with youngster. Cant recall ever seeing this before. They are cute when little. Like a fur ball. The mother is above to the left. Cell phone pic so not the best unless you can enlarge it.

[WhitePineJunky]

That's a tree killing machine in the making! 

[doc henderson]

I was able to click on it and see it better.  Neat!

[thecfarm]

Good eye!!!
Them babies have quills just like the hair on your head.
Ask my first dog how I know!!!!

[WV Sawmiller]

  Talk about the agony of childbirth - think about what it is like for a porcupine!

   Of course it probably ain't a real thrill for the daddy porcupine making whoopie either.

[barbender]

 I've gone soft over the years. I let every porky walk😊

[chet]

I'm much da same way with da cottontail bunnies that have takin' over our yard. Much to da dismay of da wifes flower beds. 

[woodroe]

Also in the live and let live category. I did take one porcupine out of a sugar maple that was
being tapped many years ago. Chewing on a big limb in the spring time. Bang and thump. That one got a piece of woods road named after it, Porcupine hill.
The crew moved to a different tree from yesterday, in a Hemlock now . Probably didn't like all the noise I was making, chainsaw and trees crashing 50' away.

[SwampDonkey]

Any sizeable brush pile or lean to in the woods will invite porkies around here. They seem to like sugar maple the best around here. Pole sized one they skin them from top to bottom of all the bark, big trees they skin the upper limbs of bark. Saw a couple around all winter up at the woods, they skun a few maples.   Of course I try to leave nice sugar maples, but they want them the most. Beavers do to.

[doc henderson]

baby porcupine quills are soft.

[fluidpowerpro]

One night a few years back I was sitting by my campfire and heard an animal making the one of the weirdest sounds. Hard to describe it but it sounded like it had been sucking in some helium. Went and got a flashlight to investigate and found that it was a porcupine up in a tree. Have not heard one since.

[barbender]

 I don't know if I've related this one before, but one of my Great Uncles had a pet porcupine. He found it when it was little. Uncle was one of those guys that would pet the fur off critters, and knew that he had a special connection with all animals. He didn't really, as bore out  in instances such as the time he got attacked by the big mama coon he let in the house and she found him to be a bit too forward.

 But the important thing was Uncle thought he was the animal whisperer, so he'd try to pet and tame anything that couldn't move fast enough to get away from him, which brings us back to Porky. Uncle kept that porcupine around. It was free to come and go as it pleased, it would come to the sliding glass door and Uncle would let it in the house. It would come in, and crawl up in Uncle's lap and Uncle would pet it while he watched TV (I'm not making this up). The porky even made a bit of a purring sound. Direction of petting stroke was very important!

 As I mentioned, the animal was free to come and go as it pleased, so sometimes it would wander into the forest and go be a wild porcupine for a week or a month. But, without fail, it would show back up in front of the sliding glass door and be ready for a good petting and some TV.

 One one occasion, Porky must've been on a bit of a bender and hadn't been seen for quite some time. Uncle was getting a little distraught. Then lo and behold, there was Porky in the front yard. Uncle rushed out, overjoyed to see his thorny little pal. Porky seemed a little off and not as friendly as usual, but Unc finally got it coralled into the house and got it a treat. After a bit, he looked back at the sliding glass door and there was a porcupine standing at the door. Looked familiar. Porky? Yeah, Uncle had herded the wrong porcupine into the house, a wild one. I don't know what he did after that, but he got it sorted out somehow.

 Grandad told me one time that Uncle (his brother) was, "so stupid he ought to be committed"😂😂 Grandad wasn't the sort to pet porcupines.