Colorado

[wsmith]

I haven't posted in a while, been busy with school.  Tonight we had our first predator attack.  We are pretty sure it was a fox, broke the necks of both of my EEs .  Totally my fault, I hadn't locked up their run when it got dark.  Luckily my DH heard the ruckus and went out, saved my Buff Brahma, she is missing all the feathers on one foot now.  Otherwise everyone else is ok.  I am really sad about both of them but especially Luna.  We have an elderly couple that lives next door and she frequently flew over the fence (it is only 3') and would tour their yard.  They loved her and looked for her every day.  At one point I felt bad that she was in their yard and put up a reed fence, their daughter told me how much they missed seeing the "white chicken."  I feel really bad, I will have to break the news to them this weekend.
Does everyone agree that a fox would do this?  No bite marks, just broken necks.  I live in the city and I think food is getting scarce for it.  It is a black fox with a white tail, very unusual looking in the city.  I know it has visited in the winter because I find very large paw prints in the snow on the nest boxes.

Bummer. Sounds like some sort of Canine, probably a fox, or perhaps a dog. Some will break the neck, and then carry it off to eat. If it was interrupted in the deed, then it may be back.

 

[Mtn Margie]

Oh so sorry Ehook.

That critter will be back as Wendell said.

 

[megshenhut]

I haven't posted in a while, been busy with school. Tonight we had our first predator attack. We are pretty sure it was a fox, broke the necks of both of my EEs

. Totally my fault, I hadn't locked up their run when it got dark. Luckily my DH heard the ruckus and went out, saved my Buff Brahma, she is missing all the feathers on one foot now. Otherwise everyone else is ok. I am really sad about both of them but especially Luna. We have an elderly couple that lives next door and she frequently flew over the fence (it is only 3') and would tour their yard. They loved her and looked for her every day. At one point I felt bad that she was in their yard and put up a reed fence, their daughter told me how much they missed seeing the "white chicken." I feel really bad, I will have to break the news to them this weekend.
Does everyone agree that a fox would do this? No bite marks, just broken necks. I live in the city and I think food is getting scarce for it. It is a black fox with a white tail, very unusual looking in the city. I know it has visited in the winter because I find very large paw prints in the snow on the nest boxes.

I would not necessarily think of a fox killing multiple birds and leaving them to kill the next one. We have a lot of fox and have had fox get a few birds through the years. Usually they nab a bird and run, leaving very little trace - only a few feathers here and there. That is their supper and they don't usually kill and leave it for another one. I would say it was a dog. But whatever it was, it will definitely come back, either for food or for the sport of killing.

Also fox have pretty small feet and leave little tracks, about the size of a large house cat track with a wider stride.

SO sorry to hear it happened to you. Major bummer.

 

[jime]

I haven't posted in a while, been busy with school. Tonight we had our first predator attack. We are pretty sure it was a fox, broke the necks of both of my EEs

. Totally my fault, I hadn't locked up their run when it got dark. Luckily my DH heard the ruckus and went out, saved my Buff Brahma, she is missing all the feathers on one foot now. Otherwise everyone else is ok. I am really sad about both of them but especially Luna. We have an elderly couple that lives next door and she frequently flew over the fence (it is only 3') and would tour their yard. They loved her and looked for her every day. At one point I felt bad that she was in their yard and put up a reed fence, their daughter told me how much they missed seeing the "white chicken." I feel really bad, I will have to break the news to them this weekend.
Does everyone agree that a fox would do this? No bite marks, just broken necks. I live in the city and I think food is getting scarce for it. It is a black fox with a white tail, very unusual looking in the city. I know it has visited in the winter because I find very large paw prints in the snow on the nest boxes.

I am sorry that you have to deal with this.I had my fair share of fox attacks.Las year i lost nearly 50 chickens to fox (one pretty momma)and this year lost 10.
I am not an expert about foxes but if your chickens are lock and no body disturb the kill they will kill everybody (even if they are not hungry or have more than they will eat) they will go into the Cache mode (buried). The info down I took from a page about foxes and farmers.

Why do foxes kill for pleasure?​

They don't. However, when the opportunity arises, foxes kill surplus prey even if they are not hungry and​

cache​

(bury) it for later use. This is a very sensible strategy in the wild, since there are likely to be some days when hunting is a lot less successful, and so the fox can eat the prey killed earlier. However, in an unnatural situation such as in a hen house, where the prey cannot escape, this behaviour, called​

"surplus killing"​

, leads to the fox killing far more prey than it could ever consume.​

I have seen how they do it they kill a big number and then start to take them and bury them and after will came back and kill more and do it again.If you catch them in the act of killing you will find just bodies because it has not complete the kill , if is a hungry fox will kill and eat the first and even second and them will kill the rest and buried them.
I can not tell you for sure is a fox what you got but most likely.

 

[EHook518]

I would not necessarily think of a fox killing multiple birds and leaving them to kill the next one. We have a lot of fox and have had fox get a few birds through the years. Usually they nab a bird and run, leaving very little trace - only a few feathers here and there. That is their supper and they don't usually kill and leave it for another one. I would say it was a dog. But whatever it was, it will definitely come back, either for food or for the sport of killing.

Also fox have pretty small feet and leave little tracks, about the size of a large house cat track with a wider stride.

SO sorry to hear it happened to you. Major bummer.

I am sorry that you have to deal with this.I had my fair share of fox attacks.Las year i lost nearly 50 chickens to fox (one pretty momma)and this year lost 10.
I am not an expert about foxes but if your chickens are lock and no body disturb the kill they will kill everybody (even if they are not hungry or have more than they will eat) they will go into the Cache mode (buried). The info down I took from a page about foxes and farmers.

Why do foxes kill for pleasure?​

They don't. However, when the opportunity arises, foxes kill surplus prey even if they are not hungry and​

cache​

(bury) it for later use. This is a very sensible strategy in the wild, since there are likely to be some days when hunting is a lot less successful, and so the fox can eat the prey killed earlier. However, in an unnatural situation such as in a hen house, where the prey cannot escape, this behaviour, called​

"surplus killing"​

, leads to the fox killing far more prey than it could ever consume.​

I have seen how they do it they kill a big number and then start to take them and bury them and after will came back and kill more and do it again.If you catch them in the act of killing you will find just bodies because it has not complete the kill , if is a hungry fox will kill and eat the first and even second and them will kill the rest and buried them.
I can not tell you for sure is a fox what you got but most likely.

Thanks guys.
I am doubtful that it was a dog. The only way in is through my neighbor's yard and over our joint fence. We have loose dogs in the hood but they usually try to dig under the fence not jump into one yard and then into the other yard. And my dogs would have gone crazy. I have seen the fox do this however. When I first got my big goats a fox came into the yard via that route and then left by scaling my 6' feet to the alley. I left my dalmatian outside today in case it came back, tonight the girls will be locked up prior to it getting dark. This fox is actually quite large. I have seen it in the alleys for a distance and it is big, much bigger than the ones we had in Parker. One of the neighbors saw it carrying a large bird a while ago and thought it had one of my chickens. Another neighbor had a whole bunch of chickens killed by a raccoon, which surprised me because I have never seen a raccoon or any signs of one around here. Apparently he trapped and killed it.
Jime thanks for the article. Both birds had been taken out of the coop, then carried out of their enclosed run and into their open pen, I think one might have tried to fly over the fence, there are a lot of feathers in my neighbor's yard.

 

[ttclan]

So, sorry for your loss...

I cried for a long time after a bobcat got one of my girls and then recently got two of my ducks.

I thought a racoon's calling card was breaking necks, no bite marks...but I could be wrong. Loaned out my book with a great list of "calling cards" or signs and never got it back

otherwise I could look it up and give you a better idea. Around here, bobcats or foxes tend to come in and grab just one and sneak off again...but then mine roam freely on acres so that is a different scenario altogether. And in reality, we've only lost the three birds I've mentioned to them in several years. Our dogs do a lot to keep them at bay.

Again, I am so sorry for your loss...but keep in mind, the predator, whatever it was, probably will come back and try again. Unfortunately.

 

[Minchi]

I haven't posted in a while, been busy with school. Tonight we had our first predator attack. We are pretty sure it was a fox, broke the necks of both of my EEs

. Totally my fault, I hadn't locked up their run when it got dark. Luckily my DH heard the ruckus and went out, saved my Buff Brahma, she is missing all the feathers on one foot now. Otherwise everyone else is ok. I am really sad about both of them but especially Luna. We have an elderly couple that lives next door and she frequently flew over the fence (it is only 3') and would tour their yard. They loved her and looked for her every day. At one point I felt bad that she was in their yard and put up a reed fence, their daughter told me how much they missed seeing the "white chicken." I feel really bad, I will have to break the news to them this weekend.
Does everyone agree that a fox would do this? No bite marks, just broken necks. I live in the city and I think food is getting scarce for it. It is a black fox with a white tail, very unusual looking in the city. I know it has visited in the winter because I find very large paw prints in the snow on the nest boxes.

I am really sorry about your loss.

I always thought that skunks and racoons broke necks? If it was a hungry fox I would thing he would have killed one and dragged it off for dinner?

 

[suncatcher]

Been too busy to be on BYC much lately. Hello to all the newbies!!

Pozee, Glad you are back from your trip to AZ.

Wsmith, Sounds like you will need a HUGE oven to cook those turkeys! Also, glad to hear Beths brain CT came back negative for tumors.

Lots to catch up on here! I don't have any advice on predators, as I have only dealt with foxes and dogs, good fencing helps though.

 

[Pozees]

Greetings all! Busy here too, like everyone else. Spent the afternoon cleaning all the pens in the coop down to the floor, vacuumed, sprayed with miticide and oxine and let everything dry, then all fresh shavings. Birds were outside all afternoon, really enjoying what sounds like possibly the last nice warm weekend for a while. I'm doing my second worming tomorrow, making a couple of batches of yogurt for the birds, and leaving Monday for a few days in Denver to deliver the training I went to AZ to learn. I was going to just drive back and forth until Bob read the forecast and said I probably should not try to drive Monday and Tuesday nights. At least this time I'm only a couple of hours away and have nothing due to hatch until the end of next week.

I hatched the first Silkie chick out of the pen covered by the Black Catdance Silkie male, and the chick is silver, so probably a Splash, which means probably out of the Splash pullet I got from Shylee. It is adorable. Bob picks it up at least twice a day to say hello and look it over. He is quite enchanted with it. I don't blame him If I have time tomorrow I'll snap a couple of pics. It has a dark hatchmate out of the other Silkie pen and a Fayoumi chick that hatched about a week earlier. They are all doing well.

The other Silkie pen is raising 10 chicks, they are now almost 2 months old, 3 are Fayoumi x Speckled Sussex, 1 is a Cream Legbar, and the other 6 are all their own chicks. All in there are doing well also - they are nearing the age where they need their own pen, but it's going to be cold this coming week and they still huddle with the hens at night, so we thought it might be better to wait another week before separating them.

The Fayoumi trio stopped laying this week, probably due to shortening days, they are a desert breed and I imagine they are unlikely to lay much until the days begin to lengthen again. I am interested in tracking whether there is any difference in the chicks that are Fayoumi x Sussex, as Sussex are known to be winter layers. I won't know until next year, of course

I lost one of the two SLW a couple of weeks ago and the one left is a cockerel, very pretty, so I moved him out with the two hatchery Speckled Sussex hens, then today I moved the 4 Rhode Island Red pullets out there, who should begin laying any time. Whatever was going through my flock seems to have cleared, but it took every last Speckled Sussex I got from Tony Albritton, and every Rhode Island Red cockerel I had. I may try to get a new RIR cockerel from greathorse in the next few months, and if he has an extra SLW pullet that would be a bonus If I have to wait until next year, so be it.

The Cream Legbar pair (lost the little tiny pullet) looks pretty, but on the small side, and the pullet is gold rather than cream. That said, as long as the cockerel is cream, which he certainly appears to be, he should be able to produce cream female offspring. The pullet should begin laying fairly soon. They hatched in May. Bob was asking today if they will get any bigger, and whether they should be bigger. I replied that they should be a little bigger than they are, and that as long as they produce correct offspring, I can select for size along with type and color to improve as I go. I think Ashdoes' pullets should be laying soon as well.

After all is said and done, as much as I hate using chemicals, I think the worming has helped, along with treating for mites. The birds all seem stable and content. No one looks iffy right now. It is a huge relief. As I look back, it seems I started with a run of Marek's, which has to be present on the property or shed by vaccinated birds, and those who didn't succumb were nonetheless in a weakened state, leaving them vulnerable to mites and worms. There is no treatment for Marek's, but there is for worms and mites, and now that the birds seem all to have the upper hand on the parasites they are acting like normal healthy birds again. Bob has learned to check birds randomly for anything amiss, look under wings, at vents (yeah we had a few "Eww!" moments LOL but he's over it now), at behavior, eating, and general attitude, and in spite of himself he is becoming an accidental poultryman. Huh, sounds like it should be a book

 

[Ashdoes]

I've been thinking of worming my flock. My Cochins, who laid every day last winter, have completely stopped. I upped protein, and that hasn't helped, so I'm out of ideas, aside from possible worms.
From what I've read, GFF Creams were bigger the first year but as they bred for correct color the hens got smaller. Having correctly colored hens means I can start breeding for size right away, I'd prefer they were a little bigger. My males are more colorful then they should be, I'm thinking we might order a few next year, since GFF just imported more, specifically to fix the color issue.
My girls are within two weeks of laying...I check at least four times a day, but they aren't getting the hint.