TJAnonymous
Enabler
I keep thinking raccoon.
So let's add to this mystery in the garden with something from left field.....
In the 2 yrs I have lived here, we've NEVER seen a raccoon. We have a pond. No evidence of footprints, nada. No coon attacks on my chicken coop either. WE DO have foxes and coyotes. We've also caught a baby possum in a live trap but otherwise never saw evidence of any possum either. No skunks either. Typically my dogs keep things scared away....
Well, this morning I went out to the barn to feed everybody and noticed that SOMETHING had been up on the table I have in the barn. I had a single egg in a carton up there that I'd found in the barn yesterday. Egg was eaten. On the table. There was also a bucket of horse treats that had been knocked off a shelf next to the table. Whatever it was didn't eat any of those....just made a mess.
Then....I went out to the coop. The automatic door is currently not working on the coop so the door was left propped open last night. We have netting over our run so for a critter to get inside the chicken yard, it would have to get through the netting first. Not impossible but certainly not easy either.
I didn't see any signs of struggle and I don't THINK any chickens are missing, including the 10 babies that I had in an open brooder insider the coop. However, there were probably 7-8 eggs that something had pulled out of the nesting boxes and eaten. In fact, it looks like almost ALL the eggs that had been in a nesting box were eaten. Broken pieces of shell all over. I do have egg eaters in my flock and it is typically to see 1-2 eggs eaten if I don't get out there fast enough. But I just cleared eggs yesterday and I've NEVER seen my chickens eat so many eggs that quickly.
Soo....upon seeing this mess, my FIRST thought was "I wonder if it was a raccoon?" But surely a raccoon would have eaten the babies or even one of the adults in the nesting box? There'd be blood and feathers everywhere, you'd think?
High strangeness going on at my place last night. I think I need to invest in a game cam.