Feeding predators

[roosterhavoc]

Oh whoops sorry,I thought you were feeding them from like right outside your coop. My mistake so sorry

You’re still right. 1500 ft isn’t that far.

 

[roosterhavoc]

Animals might not come to the bait so readily because a pile of food just sitting in a field or the woods isn’t exactly normal. They would come eventually but are extremely cautious.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I bury mine so that wildlife doesn't associate my place with good food.

 

[Kessel23]

You guys are acting like my coop is some secret that the wild animals have never found. It has been up for 2 decades, every animal in the area already knows it is there lol. Also, scavengers like possums live off of piles of food sitting around in the woods, if they were so worried about it then I would have gotten plenty of pictures of animals several feet away from the turkey checking it out first instead of a few animals just immediately showing up and eating after they had stumbled across it. 1500 feet is the length of 7.2 acres. A foxes family territory is 200-220 acres, my property is 75 acres, trust me the foxes around here are already well aware of my coop and they associate the property with food because they live and hunt on it. I have plenty of turkeys on the property, these predators regularly scavenge off of turkey nests and turkey remains from owl and coyote kills, a dead turkey in the woods, or deer or other animal, is not uncommon around here. Turkeys also get killed by the weather all the time here, the snow is to thick for them to forage and they starve.

I burry birds that were special, I bury them just 50 feet from the coop, last winter we had a fox come and dig half of them up. Also, if you guys wanted me to break through the frozen ground and dig a hole big enough to fit a 25 pound BBB Jake then I don't know what to tell you besides that's definitely not going to happen. What I did was way more fun for me and it helped the animals get some easy food. I am going to keep on setting my dead birds out for the wild life.

 

[2 many chickens]

You guys are acting like my coop is some secret that the wild animals have never found. It has been up for 2 decades, every animal in the area already knows it is there lol. Also, scavengers like possums live off of piles of food sitting around in the woods, if they were so worried about it then I would have gotten plenty of pictures of animals several feet away from the turkey checking it out first instead of a few animals just immediately showing up and eating after they had stumbled across it. 1500 feet is the length of 7.2 acres. A foxes family territory is 200-220 acres, my property is 75 acres, trust me the foxes around here are already well aware of my coop and they associate the property with food because they live and hunt on it. I have plenty of turkeys on the property, these predators regularly scavenge off of turkey nests and turkey remains from owl and coyote kills, a dead turkey in the woods, or deer or other animal, is not uncommon around here. Turkeys also get killed by the weather all the time here, the snow is to thick for them to forage and they starve.

I burry birds that were special, I bury them just 50 feet from the coop, last winter we had a fox come and dig half of them up. Also, if you guys wanted me to break through the frozen ground and dig a hole big enough to fit a 25 pound BBB Jake then I don't know what to tell you besides that's definitely not going to happen. What I did was way more fun for me and it helped the animals get some easy food. I am going to keep on setting my dead birds out for the wild life.

Whatever floats your boat. Do what you want, I could care less. Keep on doing what you're doing. Pretty soon you'll have brought so many more predators to your property it will be like a zoo!

 

[2 many chickens]

Everyone has predators but we don't feed them and they move on, looking for food.. but you having a buffet, they're going to stay.

 

[centrarchid]

@Kessel23,
Good job! You are actually developing an understanding of what really goes on. Keep up the good work.

I do similar with camera traps in poultry area and some distance from it. It allows detection of critters getting past a perimeter when tracks not informative. I am trying to get some fish farmers in the practice as well.

The efforts allow you to couple predator signs with positive ID. As a result I am much more confident making call on whether an Great-horned Owl, Red-tailed Hawk, or has raccoon had a hand in working on a particular carcass. I have documented 4 predator species working my poultry area all within a 6-hour interval even when no birds harmed. They were in after rodents but checking at chickens in pens. I can also set out a chicken carcass and have no takers even after 2 weeks, excepting my dogs sniffing it when on patrol.

 

[centrarchid]

My kids are learning a lot from this as they help me setup cameras and when needed actual traps. The kids even are learning what chicken alarm calls mean owl versus something else. Our dogs worked that out long ago.

I have a lot more footage, many hours of many types of predators and tens of thousands of images.

 

[tacothechicken]

@Butterscotchbitesfinger lol honestly we have so many wild quail/rabbits/rats and animals it doesnt matter if we feed em or not we also have blueberry, blackberry and huckleberry plus fruit trees so we're gonna have them coming onto our property no matter what! Might as well make use of it. But we constantly do updates and double,triple check all and any coops, to make sure they are completely secure. And all our birds are rounded up before dusk.

 

[Butterscotchbitesfinger]

@Butterscotchbitesfinger lol honestly we have so many wild quail/rabbits/rats and animals it doesnt matter if we feed em or not we also have blueberry, blackberry and huckleberry plus fruit trees so we're gonna have them coming onto our property no matter what! Might as well make use of it. But we constantly do updates and double,triple check all and any coops, to make sure they are completely secure. And all our birds are rounded up before dusk.

Q
Okay phew sorry. I may seem kind of I don’t know annoying it’s just I have lost some of my favourite chickens to predators and I don’t want anyone else to deal What I’ve been through