I am mostly posting for sympathy & hugs!
I came to this group years ago when I first started with chickens. Have lost birds here and there over the years, majority to opossums, 2 incidents with raccoons. All were taken care of pretty quickly. This latest incident was with a couple of raccoons and it took purchasing a baby monitor to catch them. Then posted last year with some hatching stuff.
In short, it started with an older rooster killed, then progressed. No matter what we did to the pens, they found a way. They resorted to tunneling. What shocked us the most.......they killed 9 birds in one night. 5 adult silkies and 4 babies. They didn't touch the adults, not eaten on at all. That was the night we shot the first raccoon while he was in the pen. We were down to 4 chickens left, an adult barred rock roo and hen (Hen still recovering) and 2 baby barred rocks. We heard a noise on the baby monitor (purchased that day). The 2 babies were already gone (mostly) and he was working on the injured hen when we shot the second raccoon.
I had a steel framed green house. It is now our new chicken coop and temp run. We will build a run soon but the chickens will from now on be locked in the coop at night. Its steel framed, 2/3 covered in tin. The front 3rd is 2 layers of chicken wire, extra wiring done to be sure it can't be pulled apart. Standard door with latch. I physically couldn't find a hole large enough to get our plug through for the electronic baby monitor. The edges are sitting on metal tin where an animal can't dig through it. Hard to explain. I will try to get some pictures soon.
Anyways, been reading on some run ideas to maybe get started with chickens again. The whole family wants silkies back. This is the first time in 9 years I don't own a silky. I haven't cried over a chicken being killed in awhile. I learned awhile back, getting too attached hurts a lot worse once a critter figures a way in. The entire family cried when we found all of the silkies dead. So........keeping the barred rock couple safe for now. Once we get some confidence back up that we have defeated the evil raccoons LOL, we will bring back our beloved silkies. Dad has always called them his diet egg as he'd have just one, so it's half the cholesterol he says! LOL
Anyways..know a lot of you understand how hard it is to lose this many birds in this short of time.
Sandy
I came to this group years ago when I first started with chickens. Have lost birds here and there over the years, majority to opossums, 2 incidents with raccoons. All were taken care of pretty quickly. This latest incident was with a couple of raccoons and it took purchasing a baby monitor to catch them. Then posted last year with some hatching stuff.
In short, it started with an older rooster killed, then progressed. No matter what we did to the pens, they found a way. They resorted to tunneling. What shocked us the most.......they killed 9 birds in one night. 5 adult silkies and 4 babies. They didn't touch the adults, not eaten on at all. That was the night we shot the first raccoon while he was in the pen. We were down to 4 chickens left, an adult barred rock roo and hen (Hen still recovering) and 2 baby barred rocks. We heard a noise on the baby monitor (purchased that day). The 2 babies were already gone (mostly) and he was working on the injured hen when we shot the second raccoon.
I had a steel framed green house. It is now our new chicken coop and temp run. We will build a run soon but the chickens will from now on be locked in the coop at night. Its steel framed, 2/3 covered in tin. The front 3rd is 2 layers of chicken wire, extra wiring done to be sure it can't be pulled apart. Standard door with latch. I physically couldn't find a hole large enough to get our plug through for the electronic baby monitor. The edges are sitting on metal tin where an animal can't dig through it. Hard to explain. I will try to get some pictures soon.
Anyways, been reading on some run ideas to maybe get started with chickens again. The whole family wants silkies back. This is the first time in 9 years I don't own a silky. I haven't cried over a chicken being killed in awhile. I learned awhile back, getting too attached hurts a lot worse once a critter figures a way in. The entire family cried when we found all of the silkies dead. So........keeping the barred rock couple safe for now. Once we get some confidence back up that we have defeated the evil raccoons LOL, we will bring back our beloved silkies. Dad has always called them his diet egg as he'd have just one, so it's half the cholesterol he says! LOL
Anyways..know a lot of you understand how hard it is to lose this many birds in this short of time.
Sandy
