Oh Lanae - it's just awful - so sad to loose chickens that way. I have gotten so many phone calls lately from people who bought chicks from me in the first months of chick season and have lost all or nearly all of their babies to predators these past couple of weeks. Before our dogs it was so BAD. The fox would sit just outside our fence line and bounce up and down in the grass, just waiting for us to leave so that they could come try to get into the chickens. I bet it was a fox who snatched your mothers boy - they are so brazen and when it is pup time the moms take the young fox out to chicken property to teach them how to hunt. They wouldn't always eat our chickens either - sometimes there would be a string of killed chickens but they were all left behind. i'm sure it's the moms teaching them how to kill. Sure sounds like your mothers got a secure system in place now - that should be nearly impossible to get through. And sounds like her rooster was doing a good job protecting his ladies if they are all still alive - what a fine rooster.
I sold chicks to our neighbor who's barn I can just see out my back window. All but one of her's were taken. The neighbor just the other side of us won't try anymore because he's lost nearly everything he brought home in years past. We brought our dogs home just short of three years ago and free range about three hundred chickens; We lost five birds the first week we had them here and that was the best training the dogs could ever have gotten I think - they were on FIRE after that night's losses and we haven't lost a single bird to predators since - NOT ONE! We lost our boy dog to liver cancer a couple of months ago and I have been wondering if Callie would be able to handle the property on her own. Looks like she's doing just fine. She caught the coon between two of my grow out pens - where of course I had just moved out my Araucana "teenagers." Of course, the coon was after my most difficult and treasured birds!!! Here's one of our super beautiful babies from this year's hatches:
I sold chicks to our neighbor who's barn I can just see out my back window. All but one of her's were taken. The neighbor just the other side of us won't try anymore because he's lost nearly everything he brought home in years past. We brought our dogs home just short of three years ago and free range about three hundred chickens; We lost five birds the first week we had them here and that was the best training the dogs could ever have gotten I think - they were on FIRE after that night's losses and we haven't lost a single bird to predators since - NOT ONE! We lost our boy dog to liver cancer a couple of months ago and I have been wondering if Callie would be able to handle the property on her own. Looks like she's doing just fine. She caught the coon between two of my grow out pens - where of course I had just moved out my Araucana "teenagers." Of course, the coon was after my most difficult and treasured birds!!! Here's one of our super beautiful babies from this year's hatches:
