Chicken spies

[Sarah ijams]

Hello everyone! About a year ago I had a flock of 25 chickens including 24 hens and 1 fine gentlemen. A few hens got sick and we expected that so then we were down to about 20. A few months later we found out that a snake got into the coop and suffocated about 5 hens leaving us down to 15. We eventually found that snake dead and stuck the bird net that we had wrapped around the run. After that we thought it was over, but it got worse one day all of our silkie hens and roosters, 8 of them total, were just gone. Feathers were present, but no body parts or anything of the -sort. After that, chickens starting disappearing left and right with only feathers left behind. And here we are now with only 2 chickens left. One of which, will not come down from the nesting box and is actually getting aggressive towards me. We have recently seen eggs around our house with holes and the yolks are gone. Please please please give me any information you can! My neighbors are wanting chickens and I need to let them know what to watch out for. Thanks!

 

[sourland]

sorry for the circumstances. 'Chicken spies' - time for predator spies - invest in game cameras. Fortify your pen/coop with electric fence or hot wire. As long as predators can get to your birds they will continue killing them. It could be any of a number of predators.

 

[Sarah ijams]

sorry for the circumstances. 'Chicken spies' - time for predator spies - invest in game cameras. Fortify your pen/coop with electric fence or hot wire. As long as predators can get to your birds they will continue killing them. It could be any of a number of predators.

Sourland, thank you so much for your help. We have used the game cameras and since the hens are staying inside the nesting boxes and out of sight the predators aren’t coming. How ironic. Also, if we still had a bunch left of the flock we probably would think about the electrical fence, but I just wanna know what it is!!!