We found no immediate evidence of bodies but I did find several feather piles in odd locations around the farm.ģrd night DH and I sat up most of the night discovered and eradicated 3 possums, a raccoon and a fox. We also found a lot of chickens prints around the coop and down the hill, so I wonder if some of them were scared enough to try to escape but still met a grizzly end 🙁
We had filled the hole and re-attached the boards. They had had dug a tunnel and been squeezing in through where 2 boards which had come loose. He’s all about “get it done” and sees no point to visiting with them.ĭay 2 I discovered the survivors cowering in the corner and enough feathers to stuff a bed. On Day 1 my DH had fed and watered them as I had an early meeting at work had noticed a few feathers but didn’t really notice much else. Over a period of 2 days my flock was decimated. I should currently have 57 chickens but instead I only have 31. I caught eight raccoons after one hen was murdered! Can you put bags of cat litter around, and then you can remove it so the hens won’t eat it? THEN, I was told coyotes were seen the night before in the street right near my house. I bought coyote attractant, thinking there would be no coyotes around here. Or, have him pee in a can and carry it out. You may have several things after your hens.īuy some predator pee…like big predator. They kill them and rip the chest open and leave them lying there with their head intact. They will actually go for a shiny ball of foil even without food in the trap. Put a shiny ball of foil in the trap because raccoons love shiny things. That would be something I would eat too many of if I bought those for bait…lol. I use a strawberry since cats cannot smell them from a block away and don’t come to the trap. Raccoons like tuna and sardines, but when I use that, I catch neighbor cats. I actually brought my three hens in to live at night in a crate by the back door for about 14 months until I could get the pen secure. Since the hens were gone, it may not be a raccoon. They have a 10’x10’圆′ high dog pen.Įven if you build a tight struture of wood, a raccoon can tear his way into a wooden structure, especially since they now know where the food is. But, it seemed they were making it easier for a predator to dig under! The top is covered with the hardware cloth and there is a tarp over that.
The 1′ on the inside is because the chickens were trying an escape–lol–just kidding. I have 2×4 inch “hog wire” on top of the ground from 3′ on the outside to 1′ on the inside. Get 1/2 x1/2 hardware cloth to keep out a raccoon predator. Dogs, raccoons, all predators can get into chicken wire. Chicken wire does not keep predators out. I go round and round with a friend–he says just use chicken wire and thinks I am extravagant. If that doesn’t work, well, I guess we will have to add chicken wire to the top or something. This time we are going to put a double layer on the top of the entire chicken yard. But I’ll tell you one thing, we are headed to the hardware store this afternoon to buy some more bird netting. It won’t bring our sweet little chickens home. It almost makes me wonder if he has a buddy, or a partner in crime helping him. The strange thing about all of this, is out of the 5 chickens we lost, only 1 of their bodies has been discovered.
Now I know these things happen from time to time, but still, 5 chickens in 2 weeks? Not cool. Well, unfortunately there were some casualties while we were away.Ī record number of casualties to be exact.Īccording to the Handsome Husband, White Fatty was killed by Ricky.
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