Bad News

[SJUDD]

I woke up this morning to half of my fish and all of my ducks dead all over the yard. Whatever it was, it didn't eat anything (unless it got more fish than I can tell at this point). There were punture wounds all over the fish but only one mark on each duck. Whatever it was unlatched the door to the duck enclosure and pried the door open (the wiring over the bottom 3 ft of the enclosure was bent). I was thinking raccoon because the door was opened... a lot of my friends are asking if I had any people mad at me in order to do something like this. I keep the windows open, one facing the chicken coop and one facing the duck enclosure, so that I can hear them every night. I usually wake up at the slightest noise in the yard and have caught a rat in the chicken coop stealing eggs before, but heard nothing last night or this morning. My girlfriend thinks it was my dogs but the dogs would have been wet if they had gotten into the fish pond and neither of them were wet. Do you guys have any ideas of what it could have been?? Are any of you leaning towards the possibility of it being a human? When my dog got one of my chickens, she ate it... or as much of it as she could before I caught her so I cannot imagine her getting the ducks and not eating anything on them. I would like to solve the mystery before considering getting more ducks. The latch on the gate was not a snap lock but it had to move in and up in order to be opened. My girlfriend tried to open it with one finger to prove that the dogs could have opened it but it took her about 15 tries to open it and made a LOT of noise in the process. stating "wow, this is hard to open" in the process) Any ideas would be welcome. I am going to put some live traps out there tonight to see if we catch anything.
Thank you
Sharyl
RIP Daffy, Roxanne, Stella and Adrianne.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

raccoom, mink, weasel first come to mind

sorry for the loss of the ducks and fish both

 

[SJUDD]

Oh goodness. My best friend just asked me to meet her for lunch and told me that she went to my house after I left for work, put 3 mallards and a cayuga in the pen and reinforced the latch. I am not sure I am ready for more ducks, yet but I guess I have them. I am hoping that the traps work tonight because I am not emotionally ready to wake up to the same carnage in the morning.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Oh goodness. My best friend just asked me to meet her for lunch and told me that she went to my house after I left for work, put 3 mallards and a cayuga in the pen and reinforced the latch. I am not sure I am ready for more ducks, yet but I guess I have them. I am hoping that the traps work tonight because I am not emotionally ready to wake up to the same carnage in the morning.

That was so sweet of your friend. Now lock them up tight tonight don't leave them in the run but in a safe secure building either their own house or inside yours, the pred will be back.

 

[jdywntr]

If it was a raccoon, which is what is sounds like to me, you need major locks. They can open anything a child could so you need actual keyed locks or something more tricky. I use something similar to a carabiner but I can't think of what it is called. It is basically an oval that has a screw closure in the middle of one side. I'm pretty sure a crafty raccoon could open it but they have about 1/2" of threads to unscrew. Nothing that just clips or slides. Even safety latches with springs won't necessarily work.

Good luck, sorry for your loss. Nice of your friend but I can imagine it would be tough with no time to grieve.

 

[SJUDD]

My neighbor (a block away) just told me she has had a "raccoon rampage" this last month. Sort of wish she had told me sooner

 

[sherrybintally]

I can't imagine such a loss! I lost one two weeks ago and thought I was going to boo who again today. When I was researching what killed my duck, I looked up racoons and it doesn't sound like the damage your ducks had is as extensive as racoons do. What I also find odd is that your ducks didn't make such a racket that you heard them even if you didn't hear the intruder breaking into the pen.

 

[SJUDD]

I can't imagine such a loss! I lost one two weeks ago and thought I was going to boo who again today. When I was researching what killed my duck, I looked up racoons and it doesn't sound like the damage your ducks had is as extensive as racoons do. What I also find odd is that your ducks didn't make such a racket that you heard them even if you didn't hear the intruder breaking into the pen.

I find that odd as well. I wake up all of the time to regular noises in my backyard I can't imagine sleeping through something like that. It seems strange that there was no noise at all. I also can't imagine something killing and not eating anything. I still have to check the fish pond when I get home from work to see how many fish are left in the pond as that will tell me if they ate any of them. However I do not get just killing them and leaving them like that.

 

[jdywntr]

I know that there is no way that I would hear my birds if there was a problem. The coop/run is ~300 ft from the house and that is my estimate (which is usually bad) there is also a garage in between and a whole lot of open land where noise will disipate in.

I am really thinking of getting a baby monitor after talking to a "local". It will alert me if they start fussing at an inappropriate time. Though if it is in the middle of the night, it will be me, hopefully DH, a flashlight and, right now, a bat. I am not a fan of the dark, especially the deep dark of rural America. But, this is what I wanted so, I will do what I need to in order to protect me and mine.

 

[DejaLou]

If you are a light sleeper, the baby monitor is a great idea! My ducks are super quiet at night, so any quacking means something out of the ordinary is going on. If it is not too much of a pain, and if you can find one inexpensive enough, maybe look into getting a motion detected flood light outside, near enough to the pen to alert you to interlopers, but also if possible somewhere visible from your bedroom window? They sometimes are entirely more hassle than they are worth, especially of you live in a windy area with lots of tree branches to set it off, but might help.