Losing lots of chickens to some unknown predator

[centrarchid]

Birds in tree are in high risk setting for owls. Get them in. Consider having them roost in big tank if predator does not appear to go up in it.

 

[costello]

Very good video and pictures. A raccoon can climb up on the six foot coop with little effort as could a opossum. Many of the rafter areas will be accessible to a raccoon as well although they are not good at thinking through indirect routes. Birds high up are relatively safe. Did you clean up the kill sites?


Consider redeploying the poultry netting so it actually surrounds the barn. Also place traps close to where you think predator must go to get at birds. A preference I have is to place traps along a wall or near a structure that raccoon might want to climb.


Could you go out and check on roost locations tonight? Look for birds in locations a very agile five year old kid could get to and where jumping need not cover a distance more than 48 inches. Some kids can climb those walls and get up to the rafter where catching a chicken is a cake walk.


I have been having similar issues with owls coming in so each evening I checked for chicken roost sites and then made adjustments to those locations that made the owls job more difficult. In some situations that involved making the chickens efforts of helping the owl more difficult as well.

I'm not sure where the kill sites are. I've picked up the few bodies I've found, but I've never found a clear spot where I know a bird was killed. I should just rake up all the feathers.

The fence is already all the way around the barn. I'll move the traps tomorrow. It's frustrating that it's not taking the bait. I did catch one opossum a couple of months ago, but nothing since then.

I checked the birds tonight. I counted 28. 16 are on the rafters, 7 on the six foot coop, 5 outside in trees.

I set the trail cam up inside this morning to confirm that they use that six foot coop to launch themselves into the rafters. Of course, that's what they're doing. They hop on the chest of drawers, then to the coop, then to the rafters. So, if I remove the coop, they'd end up less safe, because they wouldn't be able to get to the rafters.

They started settling down for the night at about 4:30 and were all settled before 5:10. The last video was triggered at 5:19 by the opossum. It was moving around near the ground - no where near the coop. Then there were no videos until 9:30 when I came in to check the camera. So, it had over 4 hours to climb up the coop and take a chicken, and it didn't do it.

I reset the camera pointed at the coop. We'll see what we get over night.

I whacked that opossum with a stick this evening by the way. I got several blows in, but nothing that did any damage (except to myself - I managed to cut my palm). I just taught it to avoid me. I doubt I'd ever get the nerve to grab that disgusting thing by the tail anyway.

 

[hayley3]

Possums are not climbers, I put my trash in the back of my truck and they won't even go in there and it's a small truck with the tailgate down. I was losing chickens once and slept overnight in the barn and I caught two raccoons up in the rafters 16ft high, walking across a 2X4 to get to my chickens. I should mention that my barn was 50ft wide too. So they went along a 2x4 for almost 50ft.


Raccoons will also pick a spot and use that over and over to poop. Mine picked the loft of the barn. Was a real mess.

I used cans of tuna packed in oil to catch the raccoons. I covered the cage with straw to camouflage them. I caught 15 raccoons I think.

 

[centrarchid]

Maybe a short term approach is getting more birds to use rafters. The coop would be important for that. It may need to be moved to reduce bottlenecks of birds going up to rafters. You still need to get those outside birds in. At some point an owl is going to find them.

 

[hayley3]

Also I had zero carpentry skills and I learned to make things. And although I bought a jigsaw, I also have a japanese hand saw I bought from Amazon that is used for pruning tree limbs but it works for sawing small pieces of lumber. Takes a bit more patience than the jigsaw but requires no skill. There are all sorts of brackets you can buy to connect lumber together, and all you need is a drill/screwdriver.
I couldn't even use a screwdriver when I started.

If you need any help, you can ask over in the coop design forum for less expensive ways to build "anything" to help protect your birds. It doesn't need to be fancy.

 

[costello]

Thanks, hayley and centrarchid.

It's good to know the opossum likely won't climb the coop. I'll work on moving the traps and being more clever with them.

Nothing on the camera this morning. Literally nothing - which makes me suspicious that it malfunctioned, because it should have at least recorded me setting it up, taking it down, feeding the chickens, the chickens getting up this morning.

I counted 31 chickens this morning - 3 more than last night. That's a relief, because I counted 32 last week and was depressed that I'd lost 4 more. I don't see my Buckeye, so she's probably the latest victim.

I know it's crazy, but I'm going to start rounding them up and moving them into the house. I just can't stand to lose any more. I may have a temporary solution that I'll describe when I have more time.

 

[centrarchid]

For me having birds in locations easy to assess for inventory / head count is a major consideration that can help stop losses to predators sooner than later. Get tem to roost together in the elevated location where they must fly at least four feet to reach.

 

[hayley3]

I"m getting my camera today..never had a trail cam.

It's not crazy...I'd do whatever I needed to save my chickens too. But glad your count is up from what you thought.
My barn was old and I found out my raccoons were living beneath my barn in holes that a groundhog made and they would poop up in the loft. I bought a baby monitor for $14 so I can hear in the barn, so I could know when the raccoons arrived.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Possums are not climbers, I put my trash in the back of my truck and they won't even go in there and it's a small truck with the tailgate down. I was losing chickens once and slept overnight in the barn and I caught two raccoons up in the rafters 16ft high, walking across a 2X4 to get to my chickens. I should mention that my barn was 50ft wide too. So they went along a 2x4 for almost 50ft.


Raccoons will also pick a spot and use that over and over to poop. Mine picked the loft of the barn. Was a real mess.

I used cans of tuna packed in oil to catch the raccoons. I covered the cage with straw to camouflage them. I caught 15 raccoons I think.

I agree, well sort of. My coon dogs treed possums regularly. They (the possums that is) then went into an empty metal 55 gallon drum where they remained until I went to town where I sold them on the 1/2 shell for the hansom sum of one dollar.

Then my customers transferred their newly acquired possum to their own metal drum where they fed him or her out to fattened them up for slaughter. I have also captured many possums by tossing a bucket full of chicken entrails in a 55 gallon drum and laying a board or two up against the side of the drum to make it possible for the possum to clime up then jump down into the barrel.

I am glad that you mentioned the fact that raccoons use a latrine. If the folks who feed coons ever had the local coon colony choose their attic for a latrine there would be a serious famine in the coon world.

 

[costello]

Plan B.

There's an old coop on the property that's still in usable condition, I think. I hadn't wanted to use it, because it was too small for the chickens I moved here with - 45 adults and about 20 chicks. Now that I'm down to half that, maybe I can make it work. I thought I'd run an electric fence around it and move the chickens there.

It's largely surrounded by trees. I remember hawks were something of a problem back in the day, but most of our losses were to domestic dogs and one crazy cat we had that went on a rampage one day and left 8 dead chickens behind.



My dad built it about 40 years ago for the chickens we had one year. I can't remember how many chickens it housed, and it may be too small for the number I have now.

The exterior is made all of metal except the doors which are wood. The wooden parts have rotted a bit, but they seem to still be usable. The coop is 6' by 4' and has a wire mesh bottom. It has a single 6' long roost and three nesting boxes. (Eggs aren't an issue these days. I think they're too traumatized to lay much.)















I don't know if I can crowd 31 chickens in there. And they're going to have to stay in a few days in order to learn to sleep in there, because my birds will try to roost in the trees and on top of the coop. Then owls will definitely be a problem.