Chicken Predator CSI - with crime scene PHOTOS.

[narnia]

My poor wife was the first one to find this horrific scene this morning. We raise our chicks for eggs and as pets. It's heartbroken to see them dead, and likes a painful death while being chewed alive. WARNING, graphic pictures.

I suspect a racoon did it.

 

[donkeyfoal]

I've come upon this a few times. Get a 'Live trap" soon, bait it with wet cat food, and you'll have the culprit. My experience is that they will be back. Take the 'culprit' for a 5 mile ride and let it go. I am very sorry for the loss. I will never get 'hardened' to the brutality of what I suspect, is a raccoon. I've caught a 'possum doing that, also. And, in my area, I have bobcat problems, but not as frequently as the coyotes.

 

[bobbi-j]

I agree with the live trap solution, but I do not agree with taking it down the road and dumping off to either a) become someone else's problem, b) possibly spread disease in your area from one bunch of coons to another, or c) have it show up back at your house within hours. If you are going to trap an animal like coons, skunks, possums, fox, etc. Then please be prepared to deal with it responsibly and kill it as humanely as possible. Sorry for your loss. How did it get in the pen? Does it have a cover? Or did it just reach through?

 

[firestrike09]

!!Relocating wild animals is against the law Illegal !!

 

[firestrike09]

Ive had this happen to me..
I like to use half inch hardware cloth specificly for this reason. Looks like the opposum/raccon stuck its hand thru the wire and grabed em. Ive had opposums do this. Truely disgusting creatures. Go buy some leg hold traps,, or cage trap and get a gun ready.

 

[centrarchid]

Likely a sow with kittens since so many at least partially consumed in a single night.

A dog outside would stop periodic losses that would otherwise instigate trapping efforts. Otherwise beef up coop to resist coons. Wiring in place is not appropriate. Also at least one raccoon actually got into coop.

 

[goosehead]

Sounds like a coon. It happened to us once and it came every day at 3:00pm and killed one chicken. So get a live trap and bait it with marshmallows and once its caught humanely dispatch it. DO NOT RELOCATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[narnia]

The racoon (methinks) reached through the 2 inch x 2 inch metal wires. It never got inside. I just don't understand why the pullets would stand right by the fence to be grabbed and chewed on one at a time! I would think all the chickens would run back into the coop and jump back on the roost soon as one was grabbed.

I have always left the small coop door opened inside the locked up run. I am shutting them inside the coop from now on!

 

[narnia]

Thanks for the advise, tomorrow I will go to TSC and get a trapping cage. I believe I should have one trapped soon....but, how do you kill it humanely (I don't have a gun)? Google search results are:

1. drowning it in a creek inside the cage;
2. car tail pipe (carbon monoxide);
3. poison

I don't think I can call the city animal control once I catch the racoon, not sure even they will bother coming over to deal with it.

 

[centrarchid]

I am unable to see parts I need to see but even if redo perimeter you will have a repeat of this. At least one got in unless you moved bird
parts around before photographs taken.