predator

This morning I went to feed and water and found one of my ducks injured and one missing without a trace. We had 2 ducks together in a pin with a duck house. The duck left behind has a small circular wound on the side of her head and a larger wound on her lower back. The other is just gone no...

We had our first predator attack yesterday. Three chickens gone. 😭 We are guessing fox. We free range and realize the risk. We don’t have the ability to make a run sufficient in size for our birds. At first, we considered getting a herding dog as a barn dog to help protect. But then someone...

Please any good ideas on how to keep raccoons out of my coop?! I had a small flock of 4 chickens for a few years, and last year added 4 more. For years everything went great, until the raccoons attacked. 2 by 2 they picked them off. This year, I went out and purchased 12 pullets (1 ended up...

This morning, I let the chickens out of their coop, into their run, and all twelve were healthy and in stable condition. This evening, when I went to put the chickens back in the coop, I found one chick dead and decapitated. My run is made of 1/4" hardware cloth all the way round, with a...

First time chicken owner here. I just released my 4-week old pullets into their coop and now am paranoid that a predictor will take them. I live in Southern California and we have a problem with coyotes and an occasional bobcat. Any thoughts on this?

I’ve lost my 2 jumbo Pekin ducks just days apart. I found My first duck about 4 days ago and she was out of her pen when I found her, she was about 20 feet from it. She was missing her feather, skin and meat off her back. She was also missing tail and neck feathers. She had a big puncher wound...

So a few weeks ago when we first purchased the property there were two snakes in the duck coop. Both snakes and the coop are in the pictures. The fencing and door into the their pen is adequate for any critter, except snakes. As far as I can tell (I just moved to this part of Texas) they are...

Sadly a predator of some sort got to my duck sometime between 1 and 630am. He was in a makeshift enclosure (we found him in our yard) and the top of it had been removed (large metal grate). He was about 8 feet away in the corner. *GRAPHIC* While he had blood on his face he was fairly intact...

Sorry it's long. If you don't want to read, here's the very short version: 1 chicken dead with no known cause, 1 missing. Some of the live chickens and ducks have saliva on them but no injuries or broken bones. What happened? The full version: Last night, my fiance woke me up at 4:30am and...

Built a coop with hardware cloth floor, which has worked well keeping snakes and those sorts out. But this year is our first we've been overrun by rats. Tried the bucket, and poison (in protected bait stations), both to no avail. They won't go up on bucket, and they aren't eating bait. I even...

Twice now I’ve lost a chicken to a myster predator. This is how it goes: I hear a chicken commotion- my flock is kind of making distressed and attention-seeking noises. I go out to check on them and one of them is missing. I look around the whole entire yard and no feathers, no blood, no signs...

What kind of animal would take 2 ducks during the day and not leave a single feather? I had a flock of 10 and 2 of them were missing. I would check on them constantly throughout the day and watch from the windows for predators. They were fine all day and no predator showed up. My last time...

Hi everyone, This morning, a couple meters away from the chicken coop, I saw a pigeon/dove that had its insides completely scooped out... It was very sad to see. I've never seen a bird attacked like this in my backyard before. We have feral cats, raccoons, skunks, and possums in the area (with...

I have the omlet coop and 10 chickens for 2 years so far it’s been predator proof I’m in Virginia , so a big mix of predators so far a good investment.

I have 2 adult Anconas, one hen and one drake, and 2 two month old Cayugas that all just vanished in the span of 4 hours? We don’t live in a heavily wooded area and there’s a lot of dogs in the neighborhood so a whole pack of coyotes seems unlikely; but I can’t figure out how else four whole...

Two days ago, we lost a chicken to what we thought was a hawk due to having had problems with hawks in the past. Today we were able to hear the commotion and saw a large fox inside our chicken coop. It easily hopped over our fence which is decently high. Our chickens were thankfully able to...

Hello! Yesterday when me and my husband went to give the birds some treats, we noticed two of our retired girls, our buff Orpington, and our white Orpington pullet were all missing. We looked for hours but couldn't find a trace! They free range but never have gone far and we have a rooster who...

Those who free range their chickens have had problems or fears with regards raptors preying on the flock, whether they are hawks, eagles or owls. There are a number of deterrent ideas to utilize, one of which being to put crow decoys around which need to be consistently moved around and cannot...

Does this work as a bird deterrent? Will it actually keep away hawks and owls? He’s a huge 5ft elephant btw.

I don’t know what it is with our house but all our chicken attacks happen during the day. Today, at around 5 o clock and in the complete daylight, something killed three of our hens and injured another. One hen was missing with only feathers left, the other was down in the woods, and the third...