Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[fmh]

Raccoons hands down. They are smart enough to figure out latches where I am so we've had to lock our coop! Though they normally just take one chicken, but I lost four chickens one night because a mother raccoon was teaching her young how to kill chickens, they only ate one of them and just left the rest out!

 

[Birdsong 82]

I’ve never known of a raccoon to only take one chicken unless they get caught in the act. Years ago I had one slide it’s arm through a 3 inch opening in for a young chicken out. Tried for another and ripped the poor girls leg off. We tried but the injury was just too much especially since she was young. I know at least in my area they’ll take as many as they can get in work in packs. But behaviors may be a little different in different areas

 

[ChickenzGurl]

It was hard to chose between hawk and raccoon, because we have had losses to both. The first time we had chickens, a raccoon murdered 3 of our 4 chickens, leaving the alive one with one eye and severely injured. Also, while our family was on vacation, a raccoon killed a chicken, leaving it nothing but bones while my neighbors were chicken-sitting. However, we have had a lot of hawk attacks, and murders. After getting 4 new chickens this year, all of them sticking together, a hawk decided to catch the easy prey while they were still learning the routine. Cornering it into 2 silos next to each other, the chicken was ripped apart and hawk food. It made me cry so hard. A new chicken already gone. The weird thing was that when we found the spot she was killed in, all we saw was feathers and intestines. No blood. No body. No bones. I have hated hawks since then. I wanted to take a gun in and shoot it. Of course, I wouldn’t do that, but my heart was broken and I never wanted to let my chickens free range again. A couple of other chickens have died from hawks, too, but that would take to long to type.

 

[Leela]

I lost six chicks in one day to a king snake.

 

[Naiku]

I know at least in my area they’ll take as many as they can get in work in packs. But behaviors may be a little different in different areas

I see you are in Virginia, as a fellow Virginia resident, can confirm raccoons will take as many as they can. Case in point, yesterday morning I had:

6 chicks (just got feathers, started to look like mini chickens)
3 hens
2 roosters

Went out to feed them around 5pm yesterday and discovered absolute carnage. Feathers everywhere, found a mutilated carcass of one chicken and one dead chick. All told we lost:

5 chicks
2 hens
1 rooster

In a single hit, in broad daylight. Gutted. What really sucks is I could not even see where the predator, which I assume to be a raccoon got in. Something had tried digging under the fence in one spot, but as far as I could tell had not dug far enough to get in (I buried the fence a couple inches or so to prevent digging under). Nothing had climbed over the top, it's 6' tall welded wire fence with another 4' of poultry netting on top of that. I don't know how much room a raccoon needs to get in to a chicken run, but apparently one found it's way into mine.

Had a fox take a couple when we let them free range, a hawk take a rooster and a bear get one. Raccoons are the worst. I can't wait to make a hat out of the little murdered.

I vote raccoon.

 

[Birdsong 82]

I’ve busted raccoons on top of my run and it’s almost 8 foot tall. That’s why I also covered the topThat’s the problem with raccoons they can climb anything dig through anything and are smart. Our use 4 inch welded wire fence covered with chicken wire from bottom to top with the hardware cloth skirt. Since then I haven’t had issues

 

[Naiku]

We lost our last remaining hen yesterday, likely to the same thing that got the others. No sign of entry into the run, either over or under it, but something got her. I had checked on them around 2:45pm, by 8pm when we closed them all the way in the coop the hen was gone.

For now temporarily rehoming our last remaining rooster and chick, at least until I decide whether to seriously reinforce the run or give up on them altogether.

Do you have any pictures of your run? trying to get an idea of how the hardware cloth is installed. Thanks

 

[Birdsong 82]

I’ll see if I have any with me if not I would be more than happy to take some when I get home. Don’t give up. It is very discouraging losing a flock or even just one. And if you could send a picture of your run also maybe I can give you some suggestions I did. Some people may not consider my run perfect but I’ve seen raccoons try their best to get in the way it is now and they cannot. We also have bobcats and coyotes in the area and they have not been able to get it either

 

[Naiku]

I can try to get a picture of mine, but it's pretty straight forward to describe. It's using T-posts, welded wire to just under 6' tall and buried a few inches at the bottom (from researching, not buried enough). On top of that I have bird netting that goes in diagonally (picture a roof, just made of net) that goes from the top of the welded wire fence and up to a height of about 8'

I realize the bird netting is weak, but it's on there such that if anything were to climb onto it, then it would end up getting tangled up in it pretty quickly.

What I am thinking of doing, is:

1) Move invisible dog fence to enclose the area the chicken coop / run is in.
2) Get something like this and bury it horizontally coming from the bottom of my existing fence out to about 5' I would use some kind of tie to attach it to my existing fence, maybe going up about 6" or so. Sort of like an L shape with the long piece of the L buried just below the ground and the short piece attached to my existing fence.
3) Put an electric fence, with 3-4 wires at the end of that buried piece of fence.

Along with that once I see how your run is set up, especially if it is fairly predator proof, copy the same type of thing with chicken wire and hardware cloth. Going to be a fairly large project, but if we decide to continue keeping chickens it will be worth while.

We have coyotes here, and I believe bobcats as well. I have seen coyotes a couple times, but never any bobcats though.

 

[Birdsong 82]

Even though coyotes and bobcats are larger I still think raccoons are the worst. Just because of their ability to climb and squeeze in small places. And they’re so smart. It took a long time and we work in sections to get our 640 ft.² of run like this but it’s worth it. Sometimes it makes it easier to work in sections