My chickens are killing each other. No. They really are.

greylock said:

I am interested in reading the end of this story.Is your hen still in the attack mode? Is something else killing them?
I had/have a similar problem with one of the babies I purchased in March. From 2 days old she was attacking the other babies and they were scared to death of her. She had my baby White Americana bleeding from several sores. I put her in a dog cage by herself for a few weeks and returned her to the 3 X3 puppy play pen I had the others in. She started to attack them again as soon as she was returned and I had to take her out again. ( she is a Wellsummer baby). I have had them outside for a good month now in a small baby coop which is in an inclosed 50 X 50 foot area off the main coop. ( I have them next to but not with the adults right now.) I have had my chick from hell in a dog crate in that inclosure but I do not let her in with the other babies. She will be harder to catch in that area. They are all about 3 months old and should be able to join the adults in another month. I am torn as to turn her loose with the babies or wait till I let them join the adults who will not put up with her nonsense,

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If you read the entire thread, you'll see it was a raccoon.

I'm sorry. I just now saw where there are 8 pages. Happy to hear the culprit was found and caught. You will need to keep the trap up as the rest of his family may return.

sounds like a mink or weasel to me too. I have 17 hens, all heritage breeds, 12. 8 week old Americauna pullets, and 3 roosters, 1 dk brahma, 1 light brahma and a bearded buff laced polish...A weasel devastated my neighbors flock. They are like a mouse, if they can get their head in, it is all over. Bad part is, they kill for fun too. I pulled a 6 foot rat snake out of my coop, he went right up the ladder. when we cleared some brush. Just threw him back in the pasture...no harm done, no need to kill it. I have 1/4 and 1/2 hardware cloth ALL around the bottoms of my three coops/runs. Also concrete blocks or old ceramic tile buried makes a great deterrent. Good Luck!
I do have resident horned owl that lives in the pasture, and a few hawks. I have made it way too complicated to just fly in and grab a bird. They are great flyers,The way I have my3 coops, setup and lots of stuff hanging that they have great difficulty navigating. Plus my Brahma roosters weigh about 11 lbs each, and are about 2 foot tall...great guardians of my flock. BTW my smaller polish rooster is top rooster! lol

just read it, raccoons are a pain. We have shot a whole family of 5 last fall. My rottweilers have assumed the protectors of the flock. They let us know when the coons are around. Be carefull though, we went through a 6 month ordeal with the Health dept, over a rabid raccoon. Had to verify all tags on my dogs...coons were after the chickens.

I bought a security system off Amazon 2 yrs ago. It has a 2 week backup of video from 8 different cameras at a cost of $400. However, you could probably get a 2 or 4 camera system for a couple hundred dollars. I know it sounds like a lot of money, but its worth it when you need to figure out what your birds have been up to.

http://www.amazon.com/Swann-Securit...1432487048&sr=8-1&keywords=swann+4+camera+dvr

Good Luck!

When you are referring to hardware cloth are you meaning Hail screen?

1chickendog142 said:

When you are referring to hardware cloth are you meaning Hail screen?

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Most hardware cloth discussed here is usually a 19ga wire welded up in a 1/2" x 1/2" mesh and galvanized after welding.
Regional/colloquial names for products can be confusing.......never heard of hail screen.

polychip said:

The ones I've seen that aren't eaten look like they're injured around the head and neck area but I can't tell by what.

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Please don't eat them They want to be our friends

So I posted a few weeks ago my one hen seemed to be sick but not sure why, she was walking, standing and then sometimes would just sit down or fall over, laying there. I've been keeping her out of the coop and she was doing so much better, eating, drinking, but no laying of eggs, I think she was stressed and being bullied. After a month of not sleeping in her own cage and in the house, yes she would come in a night on her own and go to bed, even hang with the two dogs on the pad of the stairs. During the day I would let her out along with the chickens in the coop to free range. I would see one or two run after her (but then do nothing) so I'm assuming she was being bullied. Well last night, she went into the coop with all the others and was sitting on a perch all by herself. I went to go get her, but then thought this is where she wanted to be so I locked the cage. This coop is the size of a kitchen covered and not covered with many perches and 7 laying boxes for 14 hens. Well this morning I found her in the corner, dead!! I'm so sad, I wish I would of brought her in!!!! She was doing so much better.. This is her in my profile picture.