Well yesterday I about killed myself getting the my meaties all set up in their new hoop house for the next week or two. I moved them all out there by myself.
I knew the hoop house wasn't exactly predator proof but we took the risk because we've never ever seen anything around, have never lost a bird to anything, and we were going to beef it up today.
They had 5' run wire all the way around, a roof over their head, etc. No buried wire or anything though.
We get up this morning and find that something had gotten in and we have 7 dead or missing birds and another 8 injured. We found 4 bodies all without heads. At first I thought it was a coyote. Now I'm not too sure.
Something started digging under the fence and left a print in the soil, it looked very canine-ish to me. A distinct paw pad with toes and the print was about 2 inches wide Max. Coyote or Fox? I doubt it was a Racoon.
Luckily they didn't take any of my goslings.
The injured birds mostly had head injuries, but also other little nips and bites here and there.
I had to put 5 of the injured birds down. 3 are in the hospital cage with minor wounds.
Thinking back on the whole thing, here is what is not sitting right with me:
We found them at about 7:45am. And all of the wounds were FRESH. There was a discarded carcass with it's entire head/neck/ and about half of it's breast missing in the middle of the field about 50 feet away from the hoop house. We found two heads on the ground surrounding the hoop house like something might have first plucked the head off through the wire, (but why wouldn't it have eaten them?).
My husband found them. I was down here at the computer with my morning tea and he came running down the stairs and outside because he had been in the upstairs bathroom and looked out the window to see feathers on the ground and the fence messed up.
I am now thinking he might have scared it off and it was in the middle of eating that bird in the field.
Their wounds just looked too darn fresh.
What would be more prone to attack in morning daylight, a Coyote or a Fox?
Whatever this thing was it was awfully sloppy about how it went about hunting them. And we still have 3 just missing, we went into the surrounding woods and found no feathers or bodies...
We're moving them this afternoon and I have my 150 pound Newfoundland staked out right outside the hoop house for the time being.
The other thing that concerns me is their size... These guys are 7 weeks old and were due to go to processor next week. I processed 5 of them myself this morning and the heaviest dressed out bird was 2.5 pounds!
What is up with that?! They are getting food 12 hours a day and eating nearly 25 pounds of grain a day.
I knew the hoop house wasn't exactly predator proof but we took the risk because we've never ever seen anything around, have never lost a bird to anything, and we were going to beef it up today.
They had 5' run wire all the way around, a roof over their head, etc. No buried wire or anything though.
We get up this morning and find that something had gotten in and we have 7 dead or missing birds and another 8 injured. We found 4 bodies all without heads. At first I thought it was a coyote. Now I'm not too sure.
Something started digging under the fence and left a print in the soil, it looked very canine-ish to me. A distinct paw pad with toes and the print was about 2 inches wide Max. Coyote or Fox? I doubt it was a Racoon.
Luckily they didn't take any of my goslings.
The injured birds mostly had head injuries, but also other little nips and bites here and there.
I had to put 5 of the injured birds down. 3 are in the hospital cage with minor wounds.
Thinking back on the whole thing, here is what is not sitting right with me:
We found them at about 7:45am. And all of the wounds were FRESH. There was a discarded carcass with it's entire head/neck/ and about half of it's breast missing in the middle of the field about 50 feet away from the hoop house. We found two heads on the ground surrounding the hoop house like something might have first plucked the head off through the wire, (but why wouldn't it have eaten them?).
My husband found them. I was down here at the computer with my morning tea and he came running down the stairs and outside because he had been in the upstairs bathroom and looked out the window to see feathers on the ground and the fence messed up.
I am now thinking he might have scared it off and it was in the middle of eating that bird in the field.
Their wounds just looked too darn fresh.
What would be more prone to attack in morning daylight, a Coyote or a Fox?
Whatever this thing was it was awfully sloppy about how it went about hunting them. And we still have 3 just missing, we went into the surrounding woods and found no feathers or bodies...
We're moving them this afternoon and I have my 150 pound Newfoundland staked out right outside the hoop house for the time being.
The other thing that concerns me is their size... These guys are 7 weeks old and were due to go to processor next week. I processed 5 of them myself this morning and the heaviest dressed out bird was 2.5 pounds!
What is up with that?! They are getting food 12 hours a day and eating nearly 25 pounds of grain a day.
