- Apr 22, 2014
- 2,666
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Friday we lost Ebony and Belle (two of our runner ducklings) to Raccoons.
Since Easter, we had been giving the ducklings the run of the yard during the day and bringing them back indoors at night. Tuesday night (4/29), they protested so much that we just herded them into their gazebo and shut and locked the door. Wednesday morning every thing was fine. It seemed they wanted to cuddle together, and because of the kiddie pool in the middle of the gazebo, they had to spread around the outside of the pool. I moved the pool to one side of the gazebo so they would have more room on the other side of the pool and the whole flock could cuddle together if they wanted to. We herded them back into the gazebo Wednesday night and noticed that while being herded, they would cram themselves into the corner where the pool and the gazebo met so I made a mental note that I would put the pool back in the center next time. Thursday morning and all was fine I emptied the pool and cleaned it and when it was about 1/3 full I remembered that I wanted to recenter the pool. I gave it a pull and it was too heavy for me to move. I didn't think it mattered enough to drain the pool again to move it (the next refill was only two days away after all - duck water has a short shelf life) so I filled it the rest of the way. Friday morning all was not well. Ebony was completely gone except for a couple feathers and a foot, and Bell had been partially pulled through the gazebo bars and partially devoured. Rhiannon was laying under Bell's body, but was mostly unharmed. What had happened, was the ducklings had run around the pool to get away from the raccoon, and wedged themselves between the gazebo bars and the pool so they were trapped against the bars and the raccoon had easy access. The only thing that saved Rhiannon was Belle's body. I had to partially disassemble the gazebo to lift Belle off Rhiannon. They were so tight under the pool. The strange thing was there was only one quiet quack Thursday night. They are close enough to the house that we always hear them quack when the sun goes up or down or the wind picks up. But apparently they don't make much noise when there is a raccoon in the yard.
Fate was particularly cruel in its selection. Belle was the duckling that had bonded the most with Yvonne. All the other ducklings liked cuddling on the couch in the evenings once they got there, but would protest being taken from the brooder. Belle would actually look up at Yvonne from the brooder and jump up and down like she was saying "pick me, pick me", and wouldn't protest being picked up at all. Ebony, had a very hard start in life which she completely made it through and was on par with all her brooder-mates other than being about a week behind on the feather development (her full story is in my introduction if you are interested). Rhiannon, although she was spared, was a week younger than the rest (also in the introduction story) and she had a pretty good limp for two days (probably from being pinned under Belle's body for 9 hours.) So although the loss of any of our 'lings would have been tragic, this result was the most emotionally rending possible. The only good twist was that my wife was running behind Friday morning, so she left me with the task of letting the ducklings out and didn't have to see the devastation first hand.
Since we have security cameras in our back yard we were able to get most of the details. We learned raccoons can climb the fences coyotes and foxes can't. There were two raccoons. One was happy to play with the "Grandpa's Feeder", the other one did the damage. Also, our two grown Rouens, were just free ranging the yard that night. They were able to keep gazebos and other obstacles between themselves and the coons and still be alert to what was going on. While a coon is faster than a wobbling duck, they were not the easy prey. I have read about many chickens being pulled through wire by coons, not quite so many ducks. Based on watching the ducks try to get away from us, I would guess that if the pool had been centered, the ducklings would have avoided being in the raccoon's reach. Even if the coons worked together, they would have probably had to dig in to get in the gazebo, or would have gone after the grown ducks as the easier target. I am only mentioning this because the advise I would give that I haven't already stumbled across is, if you put your house inside your run, rather than putting it on a back wall of the run which I think is a common practice, you might want to put it two feet inside the run on all sides so that ducks have an escape route. That also goes for any other obstacle. I think if a duck could just walk away from the fence it would. Of course if they are secure in the house it doesn't really matter.
I took Friday off and reviewed the security footage. We set them up an impromptu house from an 8' x 6' plastic shed. We had actually set up an identical shed before they ever went outside (we had two of these we bought when we moved here, then we built a larger metal shed and didn't need them as much) and a 60 mph gust flipped it over and broke it into pieces - guess when they are empty, they can't handle those gusts and they weren't structurally designed to tumble. This time, I drilled two holes through the rear corner supports, ran a rope through the inside of the shed and secured it to steel stakes in the ground. It isn't going anywhere. I drilled several holes in the plastic window for ventilation and covered 3/4 of the floor with pine shavings about 3" deep. I put the water on the 1/4 without the shavings. I went inside and shut the door and stayed in it for about 10 minutes. It didn't seem too muggy, so I thought it would do. I latched the left door shut and propped the right door open so they could get used to the idea that it was there. I went out and bought 3 DP coon traps (the coon population of Helena, MT is about to get a bit lower) and set and baited them. My wife had to go out of town that evening, so around 8:00 pm (45 min before sunset) I started gathering up the ducklings solo... Good Luck! I set up an unused chain-link door sideways in front of the open door of the duck house. This created a two foot high fence that could keep the ducklings in. I herded the ducklings into their gazebo, then closed myself in with them and herded them in groups of two or three (with quite a bit of protest) into a pet taxi. Then carried them over to the house and released them inside. Rinse and repeat. Then I had to catch the two adults individually (the carrier would have just caused more problems) and put them in. This was with even greater protest. The ambivalence between flock 1 (the adults) and flock 2 (the 'lings) had died down a bit and they decided that there was enough lawn for 2 separate flocks and they could share resources like drinking water (only one flock to a pool though). Putting them in the same 8' x 6' shed was a bit too much though... Tough!
Friday night the raccoons did not return. I opened the house at 7:00 am Saturday morning and the adults shot out of the house. The 'lings contemplated their situation, then came out more slowly. All of them went straight for the food. They are old enough now that they can eat during the day. I stepped back into the house and shut the door. The ammonia wasn't even noticeable and it was quite breathable. Good! I only had to clean the small amount of shavings that had been scattered around the water and gotten wet then tossed the rest of the shavings and redistributed them.
Saturday, thankfully I had Yvonne's help. I positioned her near the house and with very little effort, I herded the ducklings into the house. (Good 'lings - here are a bunch of meal worms.) Yvonne stood guard over the house and I herded with GREAT protest the adults into the house. That night one of the coons came back. It wandered through the gazebos while Yvonne and I kept a security cam vigil. It walked over to the duck house and even leaned on it. Now I am sure that if it put its mind to it, the coon could claw and bite through the plastic. It might take a while, but I didn't want it to have the small measure of success to keep it going in that direction. So I went out the back door and while it was running away took a shot at it. At the range and speed at 2 a.m. with no light, I am pretty sure I didn't get it, but hey, maybe I rustled some grass a little too close for comfort. While we were keeping our security cam vigil, I did some shopping on Amazon and got a wireless thermometer set with multiple zones. That way I can view indoor, outdoor and duck house temperatures. I would hate to roast the little darlings this summer.
Sunday, all the ducks came out like champs... and straight for the food. I gave the duck house atmosphere a whiff. All is good. Did the short clean again. The adults are hanging out closer to the ducklings, but are still separate. We went out and got an additional 2 traps to put in the path the raccoon was following. When the sun started getting low, the ducks all hit the food (they were filling their crops - not going to be hungry again tonight!) The ducklings actually about an hour early all went into their house then immediately came back out. When it was time, the 'lings herded in VERY easily (Yay! more worms!). Getting the adults in was still like pulling teeth. No sign of the raccoon that night.
Yesterday, Yvonne let the ducks out and took care of them. She said it was great. Rhiannon was walking normally as if nothing happened. About an hour before we put them in the house, we came out for a lettuce fest and they didn't enjoy it as much as usual because they had gorged themselves on feed for the night (smart duckies). We went back inside for a bit, then when we came out to put them in their house, there were only the two adult ducks in the yard... the ducklings were all gone... in the house! (Yay! more worms!) Adults... don't... wanna... go... in... I wonder which will happen first: the adult ducks will chill out and go in the house without two much fuss or the two flocks will become one and the adults will go in with the rest of the flock. Last night the raccoon came back. Made a very quick pass through both gazebos, then was gone. Tonight I am going to leave some additional marshmallows outside the traps and see if I can pique its interest.
Yvonne and I let them out and cleaned up together and had everything around in about 5 minutes.
We sure miss Ebony and Belle.
Ebony 5/1
Belle 5/1
R.I.P.
Since Easter, we had been giving the ducklings the run of the yard during the day and bringing them back indoors at night. Tuesday night (4/29), they protested so much that we just herded them into their gazebo and shut and locked the door. Wednesday morning every thing was fine. It seemed they wanted to cuddle together, and because of the kiddie pool in the middle of the gazebo, they had to spread around the outside of the pool. I moved the pool to one side of the gazebo so they would have more room on the other side of the pool and the whole flock could cuddle together if they wanted to. We herded them back into the gazebo Wednesday night and noticed that while being herded, they would cram themselves into the corner where the pool and the gazebo met so I made a mental note that I would put the pool back in the center next time. Thursday morning and all was fine I emptied the pool and cleaned it and when it was about 1/3 full I remembered that I wanted to recenter the pool. I gave it a pull and it was too heavy for me to move. I didn't think it mattered enough to drain the pool again to move it (the next refill was only two days away after all - duck water has a short shelf life) so I filled it the rest of the way. Friday morning all was not well. Ebony was completely gone except for a couple feathers and a foot, and Bell had been partially pulled through the gazebo bars and partially devoured. Rhiannon was laying under Bell's body, but was mostly unharmed. What had happened, was the ducklings had run around the pool to get away from the raccoon, and wedged themselves between the gazebo bars and the pool so they were trapped against the bars and the raccoon had easy access. The only thing that saved Rhiannon was Belle's body. I had to partially disassemble the gazebo to lift Belle off Rhiannon. They were so tight under the pool. The strange thing was there was only one quiet quack Thursday night. They are close enough to the house that we always hear them quack when the sun goes up or down or the wind picks up. But apparently they don't make much noise when there is a raccoon in the yard.
Fate was particularly cruel in its selection. Belle was the duckling that had bonded the most with Yvonne. All the other ducklings liked cuddling on the couch in the evenings once they got there, but would protest being taken from the brooder. Belle would actually look up at Yvonne from the brooder and jump up and down like she was saying "pick me, pick me", and wouldn't protest being picked up at all. Ebony, had a very hard start in life which she completely made it through and was on par with all her brooder-mates other than being about a week behind on the feather development (her full story is in my introduction if you are interested). Rhiannon, although she was spared, was a week younger than the rest (also in the introduction story) and she had a pretty good limp for two days (probably from being pinned under Belle's body for 9 hours.) So although the loss of any of our 'lings would have been tragic, this result was the most emotionally rending possible. The only good twist was that my wife was running behind Friday morning, so she left me with the task of letting the ducklings out and didn't have to see the devastation first hand.
Since we have security cameras in our back yard we were able to get most of the details. We learned raccoons can climb the fences coyotes and foxes can't. There were two raccoons. One was happy to play with the "Grandpa's Feeder", the other one did the damage. Also, our two grown Rouens, were just free ranging the yard that night. They were able to keep gazebos and other obstacles between themselves and the coons and still be alert to what was going on. While a coon is faster than a wobbling duck, they were not the easy prey. I have read about many chickens being pulled through wire by coons, not quite so many ducks. Based on watching the ducks try to get away from us, I would guess that if the pool had been centered, the ducklings would have avoided being in the raccoon's reach. Even if the coons worked together, they would have probably had to dig in to get in the gazebo, or would have gone after the grown ducks as the easier target. I am only mentioning this because the advise I would give that I haven't already stumbled across is, if you put your house inside your run, rather than putting it on a back wall of the run which I think is a common practice, you might want to put it two feet inside the run on all sides so that ducks have an escape route. That also goes for any other obstacle. I think if a duck could just walk away from the fence it would. Of course if they are secure in the house it doesn't really matter.
I took Friday off and reviewed the security footage. We set them up an impromptu house from an 8' x 6' plastic shed. We had actually set up an identical shed before they ever went outside (we had two of these we bought when we moved here, then we built a larger metal shed and didn't need them as much) and a 60 mph gust flipped it over and broke it into pieces - guess when they are empty, they can't handle those gusts and they weren't structurally designed to tumble. This time, I drilled two holes through the rear corner supports, ran a rope through the inside of the shed and secured it to steel stakes in the ground. It isn't going anywhere. I drilled several holes in the plastic window for ventilation and covered 3/4 of the floor with pine shavings about 3" deep. I put the water on the 1/4 without the shavings. I went inside and shut the door and stayed in it for about 10 minutes. It didn't seem too muggy, so I thought it would do. I latched the left door shut and propped the right door open so they could get used to the idea that it was there. I went out and bought 3 DP coon traps (the coon population of Helena, MT is about to get a bit lower) and set and baited them. My wife had to go out of town that evening, so around 8:00 pm (45 min before sunset) I started gathering up the ducklings solo... Good Luck! I set up an unused chain-link door sideways in front of the open door of the duck house. This created a two foot high fence that could keep the ducklings in. I herded the ducklings into their gazebo, then closed myself in with them and herded them in groups of two or three (with quite a bit of protest) into a pet taxi. Then carried them over to the house and released them inside. Rinse and repeat. Then I had to catch the two adults individually (the carrier would have just caused more problems) and put them in. This was with even greater protest. The ambivalence between flock 1 (the adults) and flock 2 (the 'lings) had died down a bit and they decided that there was enough lawn for 2 separate flocks and they could share resources like drinking water (only one flock to a pool though). Putting them in the same 8' x 6' shed was a bit too much though... Tough!
Friday night the raccoons did not return. I opened the house at 7:00 am Saturday morning and the adults shot out of the house. The 'lings contemplated their situation, then came out more slowly. All of them went straight for the food. They are old enough now that they can eat during the day. I stepped back into the house and shut the door. The ammonia wasn't even noticeable and it was quite breathable. Good! I only had to clean the small amount of shavings that had been scattered around the water and gotten wet then tossed the rest of the shavings and redistributed them.
Saturday, thankfully I had Yvonne's help. I positioned her near the house and with very little effort, I herded the ducklings into the house. (Good 'lings - here are a bunch of meal worms.) Yvonne stood guard over the house and I herded with GREAT protest the adults into the house. That night one of the coons came back. It wandered through the gazebos while Yvonne and I kept a security cam vigil. It walked over to the duck house and even leaned on it. Now I am sure that if it put its mind to it, the coon could claw and bite through the plastic. It might take a while, but I didn't want it to have the small measure of success to keep it going in that direction. So I went out the back door and while it was running away took a shot at it. At the range and speed at 2 a.m. with no light, I am pretty sure I didn't get it, but hey, maybe I rustled some grass a little too close for comfort. While we were keeping our security cam vigil, I did some shopping on Amazon and got a wireless thermometer set with multiple zones. That way I can view indoor, outdoor and duck house temperatures. I would hate to roast the little darlings this summer.
Sunday, all the ducks came out like champs... and straight for the food. I gave the duck house atmosphere a whiff. All is good. Did the short clean again. The adults are hanging out closer to the ducklings, but are still separate. We went out and got an additional 2 traps to put in the path the raccoon was following. When the sun started getting low, the ducks all hit the food (they were filling their crops - not going to be hungry again tonight!) The ducklings actually about an hour early all went into their house then immediately came back out. When it was time, the 'lings herded in VERY easily (Yay! more worms!). Getting the adults in was still like pulling teeth. No sign of the raccoon that night.
Yesterday, Yvonne let the ducks out and took care of them. She said it was great. Rhiannon was walking normally as if nothing happened. About an hour before we put them in the house, we came out for a lettuce fest and they didn't enjoy it as much as usual because they had gorged themselves on feed for the night (smart duckies). We went back inside for a bit, then when we came out to put them in their house, there were only the two adult ducks in the yard... the ducklings were all gone... in the house! (Yay! more worms!) Adults... don't... wanna... go... in... I wonder which will happen first: the adult ducks will chill out and go in the house without two much fuss or the two flocks will become one and the adults will go in with the rest of the flock. Last night the raccoon came back. Made a very quick pass through both gazebos, then was gone. Tonight I am going to leave some additional marshmallows outside the traps and see if I can pique its interest.
Yvonne and I let them out and cleaned up together and had everything around in about 5 minutes.
We sure miss Ebony and Belle.
Ebony 5/1
Belle 5/1
R.I.P.
I came on here tonight...after spending the last 2hours trying to get mine out of the large pond!!!! I finally gave up....left the barn door open a crack and went back home (we live a mile from the farm) Im a little paranoid right now as you can understand!!!! Im hoping the horses will run anything on legs out of the pasture at night which they normally would do....or the ducks get their behinds back in the barn before too long....lets pray!
phew!
