Down to 2 males & I hate FOXES!

[Cindy in PA]

My flock of 3 females & 2 males is now down to Gilbert (stray male) & Whitey. The last female was taken in my yard yesterday afternoon. I had one taken 2 months ago & one taken 2 weeks ago. I have been letting them out several hours a day & changing up the times to no avail. My two males have been calling nonstop. 3 foxes are gone (killed many weeks ago), but there are too many more around. I will start over someday, right now it is too risky. The stray male & the 4 I had left that I bought as adults had learned to stay where I wanted them & come in when I called. I loved watching them eat bugs, but I couldn't protect them.

Do I let my males out eventually or make them miserable in their run? If I let them out, will they run away looking for females? I am bummed, as I can't get rid of all the foxes. Keeping them in a coop at night didn't keep them safe. What should I do for the remaining two? I can't stand seeing them get picked off one by one.

 

[JLeigh]

Oh Cindy, do I know how you feel!! We just "re-homed" a raccoon to another dimension, this morning that took two of our chickens. It's hearbreaking. I'm so sorry this is happening to you and your guineas. It's traumatic...

Were they taken from the yard or the pen/coop? If you can afford it, expand and reinforce your pen and/or coop and keep the two males penned if they get along. Maybe even get a couple of females (one for each male) and start incubating their eggs. If they have a large enough, secure enough enclosure, it isn't the end of the world to keep them penned. Beats getting eaten.

You can also keep your males in the pen for a few weeks and hope that the foxes go somewhere else for their food, but if you have a high population of predators, that may not be the solution. Sometimes things seem to just be against us and we can't keep guineas.

It's really difficult to find all this out the hard way, once you've gotten attached to the little critters. Again, I'm so sorry.

 

[Cindy in PA]

Jleigh, thanks. They were taken from the yard or field when they were free ranging. My pen is pretty secure. I have 175 sq. ft. of pen for the 2 males, but they seem so pitiful. I would love to get some more adults, but it was hard finding them last year & the guy I got them from is selling eggs and not even keets. Guineas are hard to come by. I would gets some keets, but I just finished raising 25 chicks and we are doing some house renovations, so I don't want to put DH over the edge. I would like to make a bigger coop also. I will keep looking for adults this year and see what happens.

 

[JLeigh]

Since your pen and coop are secure and they have enough room maybe they'll adjust, although it does seem so unfair. I understand about everything you've got going on - it's tough to balance everything, and it's not good to drive your spouse nuts. Adult guineas are hard to find, but I hope you find some soon.

 

[Wayne]

JLeigh, did you trap the racoon or use other methods ? I lost 7, 6 week old Keets last week, and I blame a racoon, haven't sighted one but the keets were bedding down right beside the fence in their coop, and the heads were pulled thru and destroyed....

I have set a trap, but noone is interested, tuna fish and peanut butter ought to drive a racoon crazy. But so far, no luck...

 

[JLeigh]

So sorry about your keets. It's a really awful, crappy feeling to find that in the morning. I had a feeling of disbelief for a minute, then sadness.

Yes, we trapped it. It takes patience sometimes. We didn't know which predator it was - raccoon, opossum or fox. Since your predator likes fowl, like mine did, I would thaw some store-bought chicken and use that as bait. Put it in the spot where it got the keets. I had three different experts each tell me something different. One said, "A fox" the other "a raccoon" and the third "an opossum". I think all three will pull prey through the wire, but in the end the only thing that matters is that you trap it. What have you tried to keep your remaining keets from the fence? Are you still having a problem?

It wasn't fun - none of it. Not losing the chickens or trapping the raccoon. Sorry you're going through it.

 

[Wayne]

I have stacked straw bales inside the coop all around the perimeter...this should keep the keets away from the edges and make it too long of a stretch for predators.

Thanks for the advice, will bait the trap with fowl tonite.

 

[JLeigh]

Check to see if the keets can get to the top of the bales. It's amazing how predators can get to their prey. The raccoon we had climbed up the entire pen, onto the roof and squeezed into the smallest space imaginable....The moral is, if you think "Oh, surely they aren't smart enough to do that..." then that's the first place to secure. They can. We were amazed. Then, after killing one of my Red hens, and judging from the scat left behind, the raccoon spent a lot of time in the coop afterward before getting out the same way he got in. Good luck -- I'm pulling for ya.