I've just finished dealing with the fifth raccoon of the season-that I have trapped, anyway. Not a pleasant business but you can't mess around or you might as well just close up shop and go back to buying eggs at the supermarket.
I suppose I should give some background for there are contributing factors which I could have mitigated had I not lowered my guard over the course of almost three years of poultry farming.
To wit, though I cut back significantly the free-ranging in the summer months-due mostly too the combination of heat and poop-and resulting exploding fly populations-I was-am still letting my birds out for some, typically, afternoon grazing. I have two separate runs, with pullets and hens separated and when the pullets were a decent size I allowed them to mix outside the runs. This resulted in a great deal of confusion, with hens going into the pullets' pen to help themselves to grower and vice-versa and separating the two flocks at night was a bit problematic-though my herding skills improved radically.
Even once inside their run, I had a problem just getting the pullets back in their brooder enclosure. They were flying over the fence (I added deer netting) but then a bigger problem manifested when they took to flying up into a spruce tree at dusk-before I could herd them inside- and there wasn't much I could do about that. Well, actually there was but as I say, I had gotten very comfortable about letting them out and not having predator issues. I lost two pullets during this period, both at night and probably plucked from the tree they were roosting in.
At which point I suspended all free ranging and tried to figure out what the heck was taking my birds. The two pullets were not the first; the first encounter was back in July when something (predator still unknown at that time) took an Americauna off her nest (she would not lay in the coop but insisted on daily flights over the fence and making a secret place for laying) in broad daylight. Previously, I had not thought of raccoons as anything other than nocturnal-so I was thinking, some brave fox, taking advantage of the cover of sweet fern, where my hen had a clutch of eggs. Then the two pullets were taken, as I've described. But until it was trapped, I thought I had some other critter on my hands.
There was a break in the killings and I was feeling more optimistic but one night, the bowls of feed appeared empty and scattered in the morning and the runs a bit dug up. Honestly I thought a bear had gotten in (this had actually happened a year ago) Then I noticed a portion of the wire fence in which a section of it had been pushed in and realized I had something smaller. I have since trapped five very fat raccoons.
I should add that I regularly dump kitchen waste in the runs and leave the feed outside-something I have temporarily stopped doing until I'm convinced I've seen the last of the raccoons.
So what are the lessons here?
I could stop dumping kitchen scraps outside but they would still smell it on the compost pile, not ten feet away from the run.
I can and will definitely bring in the feed at night. This will reduce the "footprint" of available food.
I will probably not free-range my birds unless I am present and better, working outside.
I will trim all low-growing bushes in the area in which they free-range.
With future batches of pullets, I will ensure that they always return to the pen at night and not get comfortable with them doing as they please.
Others have said you have to keep trapping (and dispatching) until the predators are gone. I agree. It's never pleasant, you never get "used" to it but it has to be done.
I suppose I should give some background for there are contributing factors which I could have mitigated had I not lowered my guard over the course of almost three years of poultry farming.
To wit, though I cut back significantly the free-ranging in the summer months-due mostly too the combination of heat and poop-and resulting exploding fly populations-I was-am still letting my birds out for some, typically, afternoon grazing. I have two separate runs, with pullets and hens separated and when the pullets were a decent size I allowed them to mix outside the runs. This resulted in a great deal of confusion, with hens going into the pullets' pen to help themselves to grower and vice-versa and separating the two flocks at night was a bit problematic-though my herding skills improved radically.
Even once inside their run, I had a problem just getting the pullets back in their brooder enclosure. They were flying over the fence (I added deer netting) but then a bigger problem manifested when they took to flying up into a spruce tree at dusk-before I could herd them inside- and there wasn't much I could do about that. Well, actually there was but as I say, I had gotten very comfortable about letting them out and not having predator issues. I lost two pullets during this period, both at night and probably plucked from the tree they were roosting in.
At which point I suspended all free ranging and tried to figure out what the heck was taking my birds. The two pullets were not the first; the first encounter was back in July when something (predator still unknown at that time) took an Americauna off her nest (she would not lay in the coop but insisted on daily flights over the fence and making a secret place for laying) in broad daylight. Previously, I had not thought of raccoons as anything other than nocturnal-so I was thinking, some brave fox, taking advantage of the cover of sweet fern, where my hen had a clutch of eggs. Then the two pullets were taken, as I've described. But until it was trapped, I thought I had some other critter on my hands.
There was a break in the killings and I was feeling more optimistic but one night, the bowls of feed appeared empty and scattered in the morning and the runs a bit dug up. Honestly I thought a bear had gotten in (this had actually happened a year ago) Then I noticed a portion of the wire fence in which a section of it had been pushed in and realized I had something smaller. I have since trapped five very fat raccoons.
I should add that I regularly dump kitchen waste in the runs and leave the feed outside-something I have temporarily stopped doing until I'm convinced I've seen the last of the raccoons.
So what are the lessons here?
I could stop dumping kitchen scraps outside but they would still smell it on the compost pile, not ten feet away from the run.
I can and will definitely bring in the feed at night. This will reduce the "footprint" of available food.
I will probably not free-range my birds unless I am present and better, working outside.
I will trim all low-growing bushes in the area in which they free-range.
With future batches of pullets, I will ensure that they always return to the pen at night and not get comfortable with them doing as they please.
Others have said you have to keep trapping (and dispatching) until the predators are gone. I agree. It's never pleasant, you never get "used" to it but it has to be done.
