Coyotes got half of our girls

[nireklov]

I just needed somewhere to write this. Last night we lost 10 chickens to what appears to be coyotes. All feathers, no bodies. Our first broody hen, a sweet buff orpington, and her 5 week-old chicks, one of the leghorns from our first flock started 3 years ago, our sweet pekin bantam, Anakin, who liked to cuddle with you and two of our new Isa Browns. I'm devastated. I'm just so sad. I know it's part of the life cycle/circle and having small livestock. It just sucks. It sucks. I'm not even sure why I'm posting this. I just feel down and sad and defeated. To my lost ones, I'm sorry I failed you.

 

[Folly's place]

I'm so sorry for your loss, so very sad. Mary

 

[nireklov]

Thank you, Mary.

 

[Intheswamp]

I'm so sorry about your losses. Coyotes are bad news. To not let your chickens be loss without gain, could you help some of us by telling/showing us (photos?) how your coop and run are set up and how the coyotes got to your chickens? There is a large population of coyotes in my area and I'm in the planning stages of building my coop and run. Any info that you could share would be greatly appreciated so that i might can fine tune my predator defenses.

Thanks, and again, I'm very sorry about the attack on your chickens,
Ed

 

[CassieDelash]

Sorry Nireklov! My mom lost most of hers to a dog recently. Only one was left. Now she is going to reinforce her coop with extremely thick wire and lock her girls up every night.

 

[Folly's place]

I hope you are working on your coop and run so it's going to be safe for your birds, and are protecting your survivors while it's being rebuilt. Mary

 

[nireklov]

Ed,

I'll try and get some pictures for you, but we have three coops tied together with runs and chunnels (chicken tunnels). It has been really hot around here and even with windows and vents the coops were hot. For that reason, and I hate admitting this, I kept the main coop door open and closed the run doors. The runs are covered, top to bottom, in chicken wire. Saturday morning it looked like the wire had just been cut. There were holes where they coyotes broke through and then their dinner was basically served up for them. We are lucky we didn't lose all of them. Since then, we have put fans in the coops, reinforced the runs with hardware cloth, double chicken wire and wood and they are closed up every night, much to their chagrin. I take responsibility for our failures and losses and they are super heavy. We are essentially still new to this, it's our third year keeping chickens and if I had to do it over, I would enclose the bottom part of the runs in concrete block and use hardware cloth instead of chicken wire. I'm not sure what your setup is like, but we are also considering a donkey or an electric fence around the perimeter of the coops/runs. I hope any of this saves you heartache.

Erin

 

[nireklov]

Sorry to hear about your mom's losses, Cassie.

 

[Folly's place]

I started with my first birds roosting in the barn, being told "It will be fine". Not at all! After many losses at night to coons, etc, we restored our old farm coop, and have since rebuilt the run, so it's all very safe. We do have occasional losses while they free range, but 90% of the disasters aren't happening any more. It's a steep learning curve, and you can't build too safe.



This is on an old building foundation, so dig proof. Not pretty, but secure. Mary