YIKES! Quilled by a Porcupine!

I'm Coyote Peterson and that is the North American porcupine as you can see, he's covered in quills. Get ready... we're about to enter the SPIKE ZONE! this morning the crew and I fueled up and set off down rugged mountain roads into the high country of Montana where we would get the chance to work with one of the most common and proudly the second largest rodent in North American the porcupine. Now this is true porcupine territory right here all these tall pines... hillsides perfect place for them to be rummaging around and all this loose soil for roots and berries and all sorts of delicious porcupine treats these black and white forest dwellers may look adorable and cuddly but as we all know and I was about to experience their equipped with nature's reactive armor just beneath a layer sensitive guardhairs you will find thousands a barbed quills that will make any would be predator think twice about considering the porcupine for an entree. Now I've never seen a porcupine before in the wild and I've never worked with a porcupine So for me this is gonna be a really unique experience. The reason I'm able to get so close to this porcupine is because it was actually raised in captivity so this little guy's used to being around humans and sometimes cameras this is the second largest rodent that lives in North America trumped only by its aquatic cousin the beaver now porcupines have incredible claws they've four claws on the front and actually a vestigial thumb which allows them to quickly climb up trees to evade predators you can't get to a tree in time what they do is exactly this show the rump side and all those quills you get your nose close to that and it's gonna be a face full of spikes. Today my goal is to intentionally get quilled by a Porcupine yes you heard me right I'm going to get quilled by a porcupine I'm going to show you the right way to remove these painful barbed quills from either yourself or in most cases from snout of your curious pet Now I'm being told that when I perform this example I'm gonna get close to forty or fifty quills in the back of my hand I hope you guys enjoy this at home this one no way cause any harm to the porcupine their quills are nothing more than modified hairs and they continually grow over the life the animal the only one who's going to experience any discomfort is me. Tell you where you don't wanna get quelled... in the face that would be pretty bad Alright, what I want to do is agitate those guardhairs and then he should trust his tail up into my hand. Alight are you ready? I love how I get myself into these things... one, two, ouch yep! there we go that's a hand full of quills. now the ones on the top of my hand really aren't that bad it's those ones right there you see how deep those are into my finger? It hurts to move my finger right now I mean I think they touch bone. It hurts a lot, um I think most of them are going to be pretty easy to get out those two are going to be extremely painful. Well I got a handful the quills here from my little friend the porcupine right there, I'm gonna show you guys how to get these out of either your hand or your dog have a feeling this is gonna be pretty painful. Alright come on lets go... The one in my finger hurts sooo bad right now now it's most likely that your dog is gonna get quilled by a Porcupine and you know you might think I'm just gonna pull that quill straight-out thats no gonna work these have microscopic barbs on the end and one of the cool techniques of the porcupine quill is that once it's in there it works deeper and deeper and deeper so want to get these out as quick as you possibly can. Now I never recommend that you go out and get yourself quilled by a Porcupine and the reason that I did this today was to show you how to remove quills from your hand and the reason that I snipped off the tops of all the quills is that actually releases pressure inside of the quill, relaxes the barbs and now they should release out my hand a bit easier now what I want to do is gently grab the quills twist them and pull straight up. I'm gonna remove the ones aren't as deep first. I wanna get all those barbs and those little points out of there because they can cause an infection and that's the last thing that I want to happen. If you were a mountain lion a bear or a coyote and you got a face full of these quills I mean its debilitating I can barely move my hand and these animals wouldn't be able to then go out and continue hunting I can see why eventually this could cause a large predator like that to die wow my hand hurts... okay these are the last three its not like a bandaid and don't just pull it off. You just pull these out it gonna rip all the skin out with it because those tiny little microscopic barbs okay I'm gonna twist and pull straight up thats the goal ahhh geez! Ah you can see the blood pouring out now ...you get that shoot with the blood? on my gosh yeah that really hurt... you good? oh my gosh... ah my gosh that real I'm like...it was like I could feel it pulling all the way out through the skin ouch! oh my goodness wow i mean that was buried into my hand up to the white that is a serious quill in my coyote paw moral of this story do not get quilled by a Porcupine I hope you guys learn something here today if you are ever quilled snip off the top it will release the pressure grab twist and pull it out. I'm Coyote Peterson be brave stay wild we'll see on the next adventure If you thought that was one wild adventure check out these other animal encounters and don't forget subscribe to follow me and the crew on this season of Breaking Trail this episode a breaking trail was brought to you by the buy power card from Capital One every purchase brings you closer to a new Chevrolet Buick GMC or Cadillac vehicle

Channel: Brave Wilderness

Views: 42,021,853

Rating: 4.8814278 out of 5

Keywords: adventure, adventurous, alligator, animals, breaking, breaking trail, coyote, coyote peterson, peterson, snapping turtle, trail, wild, quilled, quill, porcupine, american porcupine, spiked, porcupine quill, quilled by a porcupine, spiked by a porcupine, porkypine, european porcupine, north american porcupine, north america mammal, north america porcupine, porcupine strike, ouch porcupine, too close to porcupine, baby porcupine, small porcupine, removing quills

Id: 4U-u4CsnygA

Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 30 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/GavinSnowe]

I watched some more of this guys videos. Pretty good, especially the snapping turtle ones. You can tell he cares about the animals, and he is educational to boot.

[u/boose22]

Lol at how irritated all the hipsters in here are.

[u/[deleted]]

Holy fucking shit guys, chill the fuck out, how can so many of you possibly still find a way to be cynical and obnoxious about this video?! His goal was to demonstrate how to remove porcupine quills either from yourself or an animal, he did that, and with absolutely non of those bullshit annoying Americanisms that you find in 95% of american documentaries. This guy did a great job of demonstrating exactly what he meant to, that's as simple as your opinions on such a simple matter need to be.

Jesus, it's like being in a room with a bunch of entitled shithead children who are all competing to see who can be less interested and snarky.

[u/MaoYenrai]

"hey guys, this morning we fueled up and drove down a mountain road into the high country of montana to work with a porcupine raised in captivity......"

[u/[deleted]]

I like how he talks, I am now relaxed .

[u/hip-bro-blade]

"You get that shot of the blood?"

[u/[deleted]]

Why would he choose to use the back of his hand, where tendons lie just over bone and then wiggle around, instead of his meaty forearm?

[u/jamoonie94]

little do we know...he's on morphine

[u/mnfprdt]

For science - you monster.