Chicken slaughter

[deejeff442]

Haven't been here in a long time.woke up today to 12 slaughtered chickens. We have netting above the fencing. There are 14 inch holes in it.
Out of 12 birds 6 or 7 the heads up to the necks were eaten.
I called animal control... nothing. Word Is raccoons do this. I have 100 more birds and am worried now

 

[BruceAZ]

Haven't been here in a long time.woke up today to 12 slaughtered chickens. We have netting above the fencing. There are 14 inch holes in it.
Out of 12 birds 6 or 7 the heads up to the necks were eaten.
I called animal control... nothing. Word Is raccoons do this. I have 100 more birds and am worried now

it's a good thing i don't have to deal with any predator here..

you might be right about raccoon though..

 

[junebuggena]

Make sure they are in a secure coop each, and every night. Netting, as you have now learned, is not predator proof.

 

[Intheswamp]

Several strands of electric fencing attached to the perimeter fencing would go a long way in stopping fence-climbing predators from entering.

Best wishes and sorry for your losses,
Ed

 

[centrarchid]

Raccoon or owl could access coop as decribed and preferentially take head and neck areas. Pictures of kills would have been helpful I would expect predator to be back again at about same time tonight. If raccoon, then your upgrades as I understand them will not be adequate.

 

[deejeff442]

My wife did hear an owl a couple months ago
Getting a trap in the morning. Hope they are ok till morning

 

[Intheswamp]

Haven't been here in a long time.woke up today to 12 slaughtered chickens. We have netting above the fencing. There are 14 inch holes in it.
Out of 12 birds 6 or 7 the heads up to the necks were eaten.
I called animal control... nothing. Word Is raccoons do this. I have 100 more birds and am worried now

I'm a little dense-headed. Could you clarify a couple of things for me?

There are 14 inch holes in the netting?

If indeed they are 14 inch holes was the netting ripped open to form a few holes of this size?

When you say netting, you are speaking of some type of cloth netting?

The dead chickens that did not have their heads torn off....what types of injuries did they have?

 

[deejeff442]

The netting Is 1 inch by 2 inches nylon mostly to keep hawks out. The holes looked like someone took scissors and cut a clean round hole . Really surprised what ever it was didn't get tangled in it. The other birds had some chest punctures.

 

[centrarchid]

Raccoon would be able to go through such as hole with no entanglement. Would also be able to make hole with ease. Great-horned Owl would be able to go through hole both ways if it knew it could. Learning curve there.

 

[Intheswamp]

Chest punctures as in teeth/bite marks? I'm leaning towards a raccoon. A strong electric fence charger could energize fencing for all of your coops.