Daytime chicken predator trouble!!

[kyoko900]

OK, so this winter my girls have been totally cooped up.
In late fall of last year we lost a duck in it"s pen. well around that time we started getting snow and it was to bad to let them out, well at the end of Jan beginning of Feb we had nice weather, so i let the girls and my three roosters out, i didn't let them out until about 9 a.m. and went to put them up about 5:30 or 6 it was getting dusky dark but not dark. Well i found my favorite white leghorn rooster dead, his neck stripped of feathers and close to a hole. (The duck was found close to a hole too, but it"s back had been picked clean of meat.)
So now i can"t let my girls out, i don't want to lose anymore chickens. My chickens won"t go up at night until it"s completely dark, so what ever it is could get them.....

Does anyone know what i could do to get the predator or get my girls to go up earlier....IF my bigger dog didn't like to kill chickens and ducks I'd about let them free range so they have a better chance instead of the little covered run with no where to go.

 

[kyoko900]

ANY ONE!!? bump

 

[woodmort]

How big a hole? One in the ground, under a fence, where. More information would help otherwise it could be anything.

 

[dewey]

Quote:
The only thing I know to suggest is to make the run secure from floor to cover. If one predator has found its way in then the chickens are vulnerable even if they go in earlier. Predators are active 24/7. Could be rats or any number of things that could have dug/burrowed under into the run. So sorry about your lost birds.

 

[kyoko900]

the holes are about three or four inches wide.....like a large snake hole.....i know we have a whorf rat, but could it do something like that? to kill a large rooster and duck....i think i have pictures of the bodies somewhere if anyone wants to see them....(took at the time to show grandmother, as she keep chickens, she said weasel but i thought it would have killed the whole flock.) Thanks, i don't mind the rooster to much but i love my girls and don't want to lose them, and they're getting pissy being stuck up and have started picking on the littlest of them, my feather foot male. What kinda of wire would be best? and should i put dirt over it and bury it, or stake it down uncovered?

 

[kyoko900]

the holes

where i found my rooster, same day i found him. After i buried his body.

 

[AlabamaChickenLady]

Wow... I kinda want to know that it is too. <Bump>

 

[AlabamaChickenLady]

That looks like a weasle or rat hole. Have you tried to set any traps or put poison out (since the chickens are lock inside)???

 

[galanie]

You say you have a wharf rat. Yes indeed, they can and will kill chickens. Wharf rats get huge and judging from the size of those holes, you have some big rats. And not just one, either.

 

[woodmort]

I'd agree with your grandmother and guess a weasel, set a live trap using part of the killed chicken.