50 Birds murdered and not eaten(Graphic Pics) Caught me a killer!

[threehorses]

I'm thinking raccoons as that's about the right number, and about their style of killing. They can rip welded wire stapled onto wood right out - so aviary netting would be nothing to them. And that explains the musky smell.

Time to get out your live traps. They will trigger them if you use them normally. Stake them to the ground over a hole, put marshmallows with berry jam in the hole. They can't just reach in the cage, they have to go into the cage to reach through the flooring to get it.

Where there's one, there's a family. THis was a family. So it's time to get to work.

Please do not re-release them.

I'm so very sorry. I lost nearly all of my chickens in one night the very same way, even those in wire cages (they opened the latches with their clever little hands), and some in wire pens (they ripped wire off of wood to get in).

They maybe ate two. The rest were just sport.

They showed you no mercy; show them none.

p.s. This year I showed a possum mercy. Now I've had to kill six in my barn in four days.

 

[chiknlady]

Any one have a good raccoon recipe--My mom made it years ago--but she has passed and so have my grandparents--I remember it tasting like really juicy roast beef...I am anticipating a catch...Mercy will be that it will be a swift death when I catch it(them)

 

[kartking22]

I had a very similar event with my birds last year. It was a racoon. It ripped mulitple holes in my aviary netting and just killed, not eaten. Your situation seems to be either a very agressive coon or more than one. I'm very sorry for your loss also but you need to do something NOW because they will come back for round two. They know how to get in and you just took thier stock pile away.
Hard wire on the bottom helps and an electric fence might deter them until they figure out how to get around this too. You need to kill them not relocate because they will be back. Your local DNR will let you kill any animal on your propery if they are causing any damage to your livestock except for any endanger species like wolves or bear.

 

[wilds of pa]

Recipes are from cooks.com

BAKED STUFFED RACCOON WITH APPLES

1 med. raccoon
4 lg. onions
4 strips salted pork
2 c. beef stock

STUFFING:

5 lg. tart apples
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. dry bread crumbs
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Skin and clean the raccoon. Wash well and remove most of the fat. Place in a large soup kettle, cover with water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Peel, core and dice the apples into a mixing bowl. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the cinnamon, bread crumbs, salt and pepper; mix well. Remove the raccoon from the cooking juices and cool. Stuff the raccoon and sew up the cavity. Place the raccoon, breast down on the rack of a roast pan, with the legs folded under the body and fasten with kitchen string. Drape the salt pork over the back of the raccoon and fasten with toothpicks. Place the onions beside the raccoon on the rack.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes to brown the meat. Reduce temperature to 325 degrees and add the 2 cups of beef stock. Cook for 1 hour, basting as often as possible. Transfer to a heated platter surrounded by the whole onions.

COON

1 raccoon (cleaned & skinned of course)
8 carrots
2 onions, chopped
6 stalks of celery
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 bay leaf
2 c. red wine (not to drink while you are waiting)

Let coon cool thoroughly. Remove hide and legs. Place in a large pot filled with enough salt water to cover the critter. Add carrots, celery, onion, thyme and the bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Continue to boil about 45 minutes. Drain and dry meat. Crank up the oven to 375 degrees. Put coon in a roasting pan and cover with wine and cooked vegetables. Cover with foil and bake for 2 1/2 hours. Remove foil and let brown. Serve with your favorite sauce.

 

[chiknlady]

SAY Cheese! Look what I caught!!!!!

This little bugger scaled a 6' fence, climbed a metal wall, tore through netting, and finally got greedy...

Never underestimate the cunning of a fox.



Edited to remove inappropriate comment.

 

[chickenannie]

Yes, I would've said a fox, because they can have a musky, slightly skunkish odor to them (or possibly it got sprayed by a skunk earlier). Also, based on my earlier research, foxes can scale up to an 8 foot fence.

Glad you caught the predator.

Foxes will kill a large amount of chickens indiscriminately like that -- eat just one or two carcasses at first, and then come back each day or two and take another carcass. In the wild I think they even push leaves and twigs on top of a large kill to create a food "cache".

Sorry about your loss.

I had a similar event, where a fox got in my chicken coop and killed every chicken (10 of my best Buff Orpingtons and George, my beautiful rooster), except for one smart banty who roosted up high in the coop's ceiling. Unfortunately for the fox, I caught it in the coop red-handed. It was trying to get to the banty and was running in circles inside the coop trying to upset the banty to make it fly down. Didn't work (banties are smart).

 

[Wexford Chuck]

im sorry to see and hear of your loss i have employed my own security to patrol the perimeter of my run so hopefully my ladies or myself dont have to go through the same trauma, here you can see them making friends with the ladies inside. so far no visits from anything uninvited, and the ladies dont seem to mind.

you can just make out my shepherd (howler) on the right and more obvious is my black lab (podge) they have a 4ft wide path all the way round the back and sides of the run and also access to the surrounding fields so they can chase off anytning or anyone uninvited. hopefully next spring the farmer will allow me to run my ladies in his fields, once he turns then to pasture not crop even though im sure my ladies would prefer crops

 

[Zookeeper9000]

I am thinking a kill that big then it might of been a family so I would keep that trap set to catch any of the family left. They train their pups before they leave the den to start out on their own.

 

[fordmommy]

 

[chicks4kids]

Excellent job catching that fox!! Sorry to hear about your loss, but again, great job catching the predator!! We recently caught a Bull Mastiff in our trap. What did you catch it with? Or did you find it in the coop again??