eating feed but not chickens

[shee]

I have something that is going after the feed of my poultry and rabbits, but not the animals. It took a small hole in my metal coop and ripped it outward to the size of my lower thigh, got in with my baby call ducks and emptied one feeder and took the other out the hole and ate the feed from that one. The only chicken that died I am guessing got trampled by the others in their fear because their wasn't a mark on it, and I found it by the coop door.

I have another small coop (for 3 chickens) that I use as a recover center. It broke into that one to eat the feed that I leave there for the three chickens that roam my front yard during the day and ate the feed. Plus it is tearing the mesh out of the bottom of rabbit trough feeders to get to that feed. All this was last night.

I thought something was getting to the feed in the small coop because the dish is always moved by the next day so I started closing the door of that at night.

While I am typing this I am sitting outside with the chickens and a fox just came in their fenced in ranging area. I chased it out of course. Would that be going after just feed at night? Or are there two things I am dealing with? Any thoughts?

 

[torilovessmiles]

Maybe a raccoon or opossum. It's a lot easier and expends a lot less calories to eat the feed than kill the chickens. Both are smart and dexterous enough to open doors and remove mesh, so that's what I'd bet on. They'll probably be back. Do you have a deer cam that you can catch them in the act with?

 

[aart]

I have something that is going after the feed of my poultry and rabbits, but not the animals. It took a small hole in my metal coop and ripped it outward to the size of my lower thigh, got in with my baby call ducks and emptied one feeder and took the other out the hole and ate the feed from that one. The only chicken that died I am guessing got trampled by the others in their fear because their wasn't a mark on it, and I found it by the coop door.

I have another small coop (for 3 chickens) that I use as a recover center. It broke into that one to eat the feed that I leave there for the three chickens that roam my front yard during the day and ate the feed. Plus it is tearing the mesh out of the bottom of rabbit trough feeders to get to that feed. All this was last night.

I thought something was getting to the feed in the small coop because the dish is always moved by the next day so I started closing the door of that at night.

While I am typing this I am sitting outside with the chickens and a fox just came in their fenced in ranging area. I chased it out of course. Would that be going after just feed at night? Or are there two things I am dealing with? Any thoughts?

Do you have a picture of this?
Hard to believe that something that could tear a hole that big in metal wouldn't eat the baby ducks behind that metal.

Rats would rather eat feed than birds and are pretty good at tearing holes in things, but not metal.

 

[shee]

Where whatever it was entered was where the baby call ducks were at. The cup, for size of hole reference, is a 52 oz cup from Speedway.

 

[shee]

I was thinking one of those too, but never had one not kill something.

 

[MichaelZ13]

My best guess is a vegetarian racoon.

 

[shee]

The have a heart traps are getting set when I put the chickens up tonight by both the metal coop and the rabbit cages. To bad I don't have a third to set by the small coop.

 

[aart]

Wow! That's quite the hole, good pics.
Metal looks pretty rotten...... and there was a smaller hole there to begin with?
I'm betting coon, they are strong....it's mystery why it didn't eat the ducklings.
Hope you catch them and put them where the sun don't shine (bury them in the ground, not that other place, hehe).

 

[shee]

There is some rust there, but alot of what you are seeing in the picks is dirt and mud from all the rains we've had the last few months.

 

[coleco]

Oppossum, when theres no more feed it will turn on the ducks.