Chicken Predator Stories

[orpington13]

Does anyone have a good/sad predator story?

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

What people say predator, I often think of the movie "Predator". I don't think that's what you meant though!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Oops, double post!

 

[orpington13]

well let me fix that !

 

[troy4]

Well in my cast its mainly a You just were lucky!How about I just skip to the story.





It was a sunny morning.I got up let the chickens out and fed them.Like normally me my dogs check out our yard.Like always no signs of foxes.Around 9:00 I went and let the chickens out.I went to eat breakfest.My hens had went over the hill completely to where I couldn't see anything I was literally right next to them I just was on the other side.My dog and me.Well. how this even managed to happen I don't know.Out of nowhere my hen came flying over the hill,with a piec e of grass stuck out her mouth still she was eating.Now it was TWO hens over there.Where's the other 1?It was over the hill cackling.Just like I though, it was a fox!I could only see its tail.It padded down the creek.WAY before he started padding my dog went straight for him.I took the hens away.Now how did this fox get away with this,when I was RIGHT there dog up in the front yard close enough.Luckily nobody was hurt or even missing a feather.As the day continued on they were ALL aware of this fox.After awhile I put them up. Happy they were happy i was!

 

[Oscarsgravett]

We had 3 east Indies in a small but very secure coop with a 2 Meyer fence around them which had been placed underground to prevent anything digging under it. This didn't seem a challenge for the fox as he jumped the fence in one swift move and ripped the door of and killed all three ducks in a matter of seconds just before were able to reach them :'(

 

[olfart]

We've had many instances of finding opossums in the chicken house, sometimes just sitting on the roost with the chickens. Sometimes biting the heads off chickens, often stealing eggs. One killed my wife's favorite banty rooster that she had nursed back to health after getting very sick as a chick. With the abundance of opossums around the chickens, they also invaded the area around our house. One night our dog woke us, barking and running to the front door. I figured it was an opossum at the cat food dish on the front porch, so I grabbed the flashlight in one hand, .410 shotgun in the other and tried to open the door while holding the dog back with my foot. As soon as the door opened, the dog jumped over my foot, ran past the 'possum at the cat food dish and dashed down the steps. The 'possum was not particularly concerned until the dog discovered his mistake and came back up on the porch. That's when the 'possum ran between my feet with the dog in hot pursuit, straight into the living room. The 'possum holed up under the wood stove while the dog ran in circles around the stove barking. This whole operation took less than 5 seconds. By then my wife was up, so I told her to corral the dog while I got the log tongs. I grabbed the 'possum, held him over the flower bed and shot him. He was added to our 'possum burial ground shortly after daylight.

Same song, second verse a few weeks later. This time, however, the 'possum dived off the edge of the deck into our above ground pool. He went straight for the bottom, swimming several laps around the bottom of the pool. When he surfaced, he swam to the ladder and looked up at me as if to say, "How did you beat me here? I just swam 100 yards, and here you are staring down at me." All of my stories have the same ending. Log tongs, shotgun, burial after sunup.

Yet another story didn't involve chickens, but it did involve a goose and a raccoon. We went out one morning to find my wife's favorite goose severely injured and her nest destroyed. Raccoon tracks nearby confirmed the culprit. We also noticed cat food missing from the dish by the front door and figured the raccoon was the most likely suspect for that too. I was working out of town at that time. My wife told me she took the screen off the window over the kitchen sink and sat on the countertop with her feet in the sink waiting for the 'coon to come back for cat food. After a couple of hours of my wife sitting patiently, the 'coon appeared. She blew him away with the .410, put the screen back on the window and went on about her business. It doesn't pay to mess with my wife's favorite animals!