Australorps breed Thread

[DanielE1990]

Horror. My morning starts with horror. I went out to check on my chicks and found a Massacre. 6 out of my 9 chicks dead. Tore to shreds by some preditor last night. I have one female chick left and what is probably 2 male. I'm shocked and traumatized this morning. I brought the three remaining checks back inside I don't know what to do now.

 

[dynomy]

Oh my god. So very sorry! Were they in an enclosed area? Do you have a lot of predators around?

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

@DanielE1990 so very sorry for you. It is every flock keeper's nightmare. Today you will feel like giving up but tomorrow you will go on. Make sure everything is Ft. Knoxed in your coop arrangements. It will save you some future heartache. I've lost hens to predators outside the coop but not inside. You want to be able to go to sleep at night and not have to worry about this happening again. Not sure how your predator got in but for us, hardware cloth over the fencing 2' up and 1.5' trenched below has been a life-saving grace.

 

[RattlesnakeRidgeWV]

Daniel,
Most of us have lived thru what you are going thru now. My best advise is what I have learned over he years. Any size chicken wire is useless when it comes to predators, they eat right thru it. Anchor fencing or cattle fencing with what they call hardware cloth as a back up works well at least 2 foot high on the sides. Roof tin also works on the side to keep predators from reaching in. Wire or a roof has to be on top of your pen also. Under the pen and extending outside the edges of the pen you need wire to keep the predators from digging in. Anything less than that and they will get in. You also said that the chicks were half the size of your banty could she have killed them or was it definitely a predator. Some folks also use electric fencing, but when the bear got me it did not matter. I have seen them walk right thru it unless they get hit directly on the nose. I hope this helps some. I am very sorry for your lost. It is your responsibility to make sure they are secure in every way or it will happen again like it has to many on BYC.
Kurt

 

[DanielE1990]

I think it went in through the nest box. I don't have a lock on it. Whatever it was had bit at the wire and dug at the bottom but I don't think it got in that way as there was no real hole. I saw coyote and raccoon tracks around the coop. As for predators we have coyotes, foxes, Bobcats, weasels, raccoons, possums, Hawks, Eagles, mountain lions, and black bear as well as your occasional stray cat or dog.

 

[hippiechickX4]

@DanielE1990 So sorry to hear this. We just moved our 24 chicks out to the garage. They were making a huge dust mess in the house. My husband shut all the windows and put bars in them so nothing can push them open. We put them in a room that has doors so we also shut those. We are so worried that something will get them. We live right on a mountain and have all kinds of predators that will try to get to them. In the last couple of weeks we have seen bear and mountain lions. I'm so afraid to move them outside because I'm afraid something will get them.

 

[Gramma Chick]

I think it went in through the nest box. I don't have a lock on it. Whatever it was had bit at the wire and dug at the bottom but I don't think it got in that way as there was no real hole. I saw coyote and raccoon tracks around the coop. As for predators we have coyotes, foxes, Bobcats, weasels, raccoons, possums, Hawks, Eagles, mountain lions, and black bear as well as your occasional stray cat or dog.

So sorry ....that is So Heartbreaking ....
Kurt is Right you can get through this ....
We all have had predators attack or kill our chickens ..
What is important is that we learn from our mistakes & fix the Problem .

Our 1st coop was over board on safety .I was very paranoid ...about predators
When they were closed up at night ... they didnt even have air holes .
Gradually we did things to make it less air tight.
It was really hot in there in the summer ..we didnt want COOKED CHICKENS ...


I would think it was a coon if it opened a nest box & probably crawled in ...
Put more than 1 different kind of lock on that nest box

 

[RattlesnakeRidgeWV]

That prior set up would not last the night here with bears if you have them, so do not copy it. A coop that size should only hold maybe 4 birds at best and definitely needs a lot of venilation for the summer time.
Daniel,
Keep an eye out on Craiglist for used dog kennels if money is an issue that you can attach to a coop. You will still need more wire like I described earlier. It sounds like you have the same predators as me. My last bear attack ate thru the T 1-11 because he could not get into the pen that was a dog kennel, go figure. I also literally ran barbed wire around the top of my dog kennel gates because I watched a possum crawl right thru at the corner. My last rant is chicken wire should be renamed "Chicken Death", sorry.
Kurt

 

[mamatink7]

Horror. My morning starts with horror. I went out to check on my chicks and found a Massacre. 6 out of my 9 chicks dead. Tore to shreds by some preditor last night. I have one female chick left and what is probably 2 male. I'm shocked and traumatized this morning. I brought the three remaining checks back inside I don't know what to do now.

oh nooo. I'm so sorry. Do you know what did it yet? Good idea of bringing the others inside. Get some mole thumper around perimeter, sonic predator deterrent (don't have it yet but I heard it's amazing & mole thumper work great for under ground predators).

 

[ClarendonChicks]

DanielE990 - I feel for you. We had a fox get about half of our flock last November while our neighbor was flock-sitting for us. We have improved our run since then by adding hardware cloth along the bottom 2' and burying wire all around. You'll recover from this.