Don't pet the porcupine

[Alpo]

It's AI, but it's funny.

 

 

 

[Yul Lose]

I used to have a neighbor many years ago in Sheridan, Wyoming. He was a Sioux Indian and made leather goods and used beadwork and porcupine quills as adornment. Traveled the back roads with him many times looking for road killed and live porcupines to harvest quills from. He’d use a really fuzzy baby blanket to throw over the live animal and when we’d pull it off there were hundreds of quills stuck to the blanket. The road killed quills were a bit more work and pretty smelly at times. 

Edited October 18 by Yul Lose

[watab kid]

ill say this - i would not want to be that kid removing what he got stuck with , ive always felt bad for hunting dogs that happened upon one - not so much for this kid - hard lesson learned , 

 

good to know it was AI though - that makes it funny 

Edited October 18 by watab kid

[Alpo]

Has to be AI. First, the pig threw the quills. They don't do that. Second, look at the size of the quills lying on the grass. They're as big around as a cigar.

[watab kid]

not as big around as my cigars ....i prefer 60 ring , 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I lost a beagle to a porcupine quill.  I had been stationed across country and my dad called to tell me she had an encounter with a quill pig.  The vet took the quills out but he missed one.  It got into the roof of her mouth, festered and killed her.

 

She was a great hunter and loved to run.

[Sawhorse Kid]

But they are so cuddly.     😜😁 

[Pulp, SASS#28319]

Back in college our Natural History professor killed one on a weekend field trip so we’d have a skin for the mammal collection.  A fellow student and I got the privilege of skinning it. 
 

How to skin a porcupine?  Very carefully.  Lots of colorful language during the process..

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Porcupine quills are hollow.

Porcupine quills float.

Porcupine quills can be used as ultralight bobbers.

I refuse to pluck forth a quill from my friendly (?) local porcupine just to go fishing.

Had a vet tell me to cut the butt end of a porcupine quill off before trying to pull it out of whatever it's stuck in, otherwise when you grip it to pull, it'll inflate the barbed end that much further and hurt that much worse coming out.

I'll take the vet's word for it.

In my young life I have pulled exactly zero porcupine quills!

 

[watab kid]

7 hours ago, Pulp, SASS#28319 said:

Back in college our Natural History professor killed one on a weekend field trip so we’d have a skin for the mammal collection.  A fellow student and I got the privilege of skinning it. 
 

How to skin a porcupine?  Very carefully.  Lots of colorful language during the process..

gezz , i bet , sounds tedious and fretful

 

i have used quills as bobbers in the past - no longer have a supply , but than ive not been looking either   

Edited October 19 by watab kid

[Blackwater 53393]

On 10/17/2025 at 10:04 PM, Alpo said:

Has to be AI. First, the pig threw the quills. They don't do that. 

I was at a zoo in the Catskills  many years ago.  I’d been told on numerous occasions that porcupines couldn’t launch their quills. While we were watching them, one of the little fellers got agitated and suddenly quills went flying across the enclosure!  I don’t know how they were propelled, but they certainly could have stuck into something like skin if they’d hit just right!

 

 

[watab kid]

ive decided that having porkypines , possums and armadillos[i was in southern IL last week]  is getting to be the norm , along with rabid coons - none of which i want on my property rather have the weasals and fox as well as coyotes - save for the dog , he doesnt need hat issue - nor do i really 

[Blackwater 53393]

I understand that the armadillos are migrating northward following the spread of fire ants, one of their favorite meals!