Coexisting with wildlife-possible?

[little_grey_bantam]

My only issues is having to kill a predator... I mean, we are pretty much in their territory, what right is it for us to kill him, because his is a nuisance. Of course, animals that are not suppose to be there like starlings and other such I do not mind as much as they cause more destruction to the native wildlife as to our poultry.

A few years ago, a bobcat had been killing our free-range (they roamed for years and were a wild game breed we could not catch) chickens. Thinking about removing her, we found out she was a rather thing mama bobcat who was feeding her hungry bobkittens. Now, the thing is, that winter was very bad, lots of things died and were covered by snow, so she and her babies were starving. She was doing what she needed to do to protect her kids; I think I would steal chickens to feed my kids if it came down to it. So what if we had shot her? Well, I'm sure there are MORE chickens in the world than bobcats in the wild I suppose.

twentynine is correct - putting down one animal, will not mean no predators; more likely another will show up.

But the best thing is an ideal and safe and strong hut. If you can't afford it, then you'll have to risk losing some birds BUT don't take it out on the native predators. It's very wrong to say, Oh, I can't afford to build a better coop, so I'll kill Mr. Fox instead... At the very least, capture and release elsewhere (not into your neighbors backyard though LOL).

Another thing is a good Guard dog... but if you get a dog, TREAT it with respect and be ready to take responsibility for it. Know that that is a responsibility of up to 18+ years!!!

People get to irritated when they free-range and lose birds. Well, either go out there and supervise, get a guard dog (with responsibility in mind) OR build a bigger coop. Don't shoot an animal and keep doing it, because you're just ending a life. We use to have foxes that lived near us in the rural city area. They NEVER screwed with our birds, whether we had dogs or not. Our birds were free-ranged/penned, yet the foxes would wipe out our neighbor's birds (despite them having dogs there too). They didn't feed their birds, didn't pen them up, didn't give a crap and they stole other people's birds. Karma got them good. Once in a blue, if we had a bird who died of old age or whatever, we'd go and put it next to the foxes den along with some eggs (as an offering). It was a pair of foxes with their kits... once year, someone must have got fed up, went there, killed a few of the pups and killed one of the adults.

So in theory, wow, great, they saved their chickens... but they murdered babies and a parent

to do so, because they were too lazy to build a pen

 

[Miltonchix]

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MURDERED???!!!!! Give me a break!!

 

[fancbrd4me02]

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MURDERED???!!!!! Give me a break!!

I'm sorry, but it is totally possible to murder an animal. Many disturbed individuals do so with malice and for no other reason than to harm the animal or the owners of said animal. If you should kill an animal without good reason, such as to protect yourself, or others, or to eat it, or in mercy, what else would you call that act?

 

[LAMchop]

My mom found some brochures about various alternative labels you can have for your farm products (Grassfed, Organic, Certified Humane, etc.) and one of them was Predator Friendly. Basically, it means that the farmer is working in harmony with the environment, including predatory birds and animals. Instead of eliminating predators, they advocate protecting your livestock with non-lethal means (secure fencing, housing, livestock guardian dogs) and encouraging a population of natural prey species.
I found it very interesting.

 

[savingdogs]

Getting back to the topic of coexisting with wildlife, let me share my perspective. We live in a very remote forested mountain area with only distant neighbors and empty lots around us...empty of people that is, there are plenty of trees, hawks, coyotes, racoons, deer, eagles, rabbit, possum, owl, bats, porcupine, we hear tell bob cat and occasionally bear.

We are new to chickens and do not have years of experience, but we have almost had ours a year and it feels like we have learned alot (most of it here at BYC).

We decided we could not free range. For one, the fiercest predator the chickens would find is the common family dog, of which there are many running loose even way out here. I have dogs myself as well and suspect one or more of them would love to chase a chicken down to eat it.

So we built a simple pen of chain link, six foot, and put down tons of stakes along the perimeter and a little border so they can't stick their necks out. We do not have electricity although we may add it if needed. We built our chicken yard fairly large, it is five panels long and one across, so it helps create a boundary to our landscaped back yard. I'm knocking on wood that we have not lost any, except one that was perpetually escaping and finally met one of the earlier-mentioned dogs and while we saved it from the jaws of the dog, the other chickens later pecked it half to death and we finally had to end its misery.

We also keep goats and they have a similar pen. We lock all our animals inside at night, the goats and chickens in their respective houses, and the dogs and cats inside the house with us.

I am not concerned about wild birds disease, our pen is narrow and I've yet to see a strange bird fly in there. I'm not going to bust my brain worrying about a stray poo landing in there once in awhile when one flies over.

One final thing that might sound strange, but we try to "mark our territory" in the animal way around the coop and goat pen. While taking our dogs out to do their business, my husband utilizes the "outdoor facilities" himself, facing away from the house of course. We often hear coyote and have lost two beloved family cats to them, but we have not yet lost a chicken. We are most concerned about racoon because several live here around our house and get into our trash, etc., if we don't close it up tight. I'm not sure what is working, but animals mark their territory with urine, we just want to show them all that those are OUR birds and will resort to using their language.

I hope my persepective helps.

 

[wildorchid053]

we encourage the wild life to come to our yard.. the girls are in fort knox.. and we have a game cam to watch what comes by at night.. it is exciting..we have seen wild turkeys, blue birds, coyotes, foxes, lots of deer, racoons, owls and hawks.. just to name a few.. it is very farm land and woods all around us.. even the geese land in the fields.. we had 4 turkey hens with 21 babies this spring.. i do worry about disease but what can you do? and when i let my birds out to free range the first thing they run to is under the bird feeders where all the loose feed is.. and the stray bird poop... we can only do what we can to protect them..

 

[mypicklebird]

We love the wildlife for the most part. We have several barn owls around, and during parts of the year great horned owls. They do not overlap with the chicken's in waking hours. There is a skunk under our garage- once he moved in, the rats moved out. I see opossums occasionally- but no problem with them. The skunk gets our dogs occasionally- but we view that as a hazard of rural life. We have adapted our coops to keep the raccoons out- closed wooden coops, no screened in coops any more. The chickens free range on 3 acres during the day. We have lost our white silkie several times, and a smattering of other chickens over the years to hawks (coopers and red tailed). We do not chase the crows away- and these guys do a great job of hawk alert and harassment- we don't let hens hatch their own very often, so the risk of crow attacks is minimal, as they don't bother the grown birds. What we think is a bobcat will take any chicken that will not train to go in a coop at night, it also comes around at dawn- so we now let our chickens out later in the morning after I have stomped around with the dogs. We also have a badger, which makes great big holes a baby could crawl down- but so far no chicken problems, I think their hunting time doesn't overlap with chicken hours, as well as they like gophers better than chickens... I do want to get a game cam to see what roams at night on our property, but more for curiosity sake, than to catch anything. My big predator worry is that we may get a daytime bobcat or coyotes (though we are a bit too close to suburbia for coyotes around here)- if we have that problem- we will probably get a llama or a LGD before resorting to trapping/killing anything. We are the sort with bat boxes, native bee houses, ect- so we are very keen on co-existence with the local fauna....

 

[silkydragon]

i keep my chickens free range no fences all day whether i am there to watch them or not then at night they return to their coop/old shed and i close the door in 1yr so far i have not lost any chickens to animals except 1 freak accedent with a stray cat witch is weird cuz i have 4dogs and live in the middle of nowhere listed predators expected 1)racoons 2)possom 3)coyote 4)my clumsyness
cats are not on that list cuz we have 2cats and besides those cats in 20yrs i have never seen a stray cat and our cats where good with the chickens then 1 night i was an hr late shutting the chicks in there cage and there was a cat just killing them all for fun not eating
they were only a month or 2 old now that the 1 that survived is older we have adults and 5roos i never loose a single chicken i even have 1 mean hen that chases my chocolate lab around and a rooster that leaves me alone but attacks strangers im also considering getting some guinees to help protect my flock but my dad puts food out for deer which would attract coons too and my 1 banty sits on the birdfeeder and eats with the wild birds no problems yet probly jinxing myself by saying this but this spring i do plan on building some coops for my silkys more for breeding then protection but my silkys are my babys the rest are just chickens

 

[trinityfly]

Bears, Mountain Lions, Bobcat, Coyote, Fox, Fisher, Weasel, Ringtailed cat, Striped and Spotted Skunk, Eagles, Hawks, Falcon, Osprey, Owls, you name it we have them in abundance out here in the middle of the National Forest. We even have the occasional stray dog. Have lost a few chickens over the past 10 years but have only had to kill one critter. A spotted skunk that was to smart for me to trap and relocate. Made the mistake of cornering each other in the barn and I won the fight. It ended up dead but I wound up smelling bad for days. I have had to trap quite a few critters but as we live in the woods relocating them isn't much problem. Good fences make good neighbors! We figure its our job to protect the chickens with secure house and run, then well fenced acreage for them to range in during the day. Here is a picture of one rare predator that we successfully relocated.

 

[PunkinPeep]

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What is that?