Up here in the NC mountains, the black bears tend to be more interested in poultry food than in poultry. Though once an individual bear decides that poultry is a food source, it will be a force to be reckoned with! Because it's pretty hard to keep a bear out of someplace that it wants to get in.
We have had bears coming through our poultry and garden areas for over a decade, without any poultry damage, so far. The one that did have an apparent interest in eating the poultry, rather than their feed, was not able to get into their roosting area. He actually ripped off the latch holding the door closed, but then didn't try the door a second time. A little luck never hurts!
So last weekend when a young bear (~200#) showed up on the property, we were more concerned about his lack of fear of people, than we were about poultry safety. But then about 6 AM the next morning, I heard a ruckus coming from the chicken house. When I got up there, with my shotgun - armed with squirrel shot - in hand, I found a very unhappy bear that was trapped INSIDE the enclosed chicken run - bouncing from wall to wall to ceiling to WSW wall - trying to get out!
The only thing that I could figure to do, standing there in the semidark in my bathrobe, was to get him out of the chicken facilities by opening the doors to the enclosed run and the larger fenced pasture - without getting run over. And sure enough, after several more more bounces off the walls during my retreat, he found the open door and headed back out of the fenced pasture with the encouragement of a shotgun blast.
I could hardly "bear" opening the door to the roosting area to see what he had done to the chickens, but they were all sitting up on their roosts, apparently enjoying the spectacle - with the exception of one old Cochin hen that had run out into a corner of the run, where she had managed to avoid getting trampled underfoot. The bear had dragged the feeder out into the run where it was crushed and empty. But how had he gotten in, and why didn't he go back out the same way?
The pictures below answer the first question, but I am not sure about the answer to the second.
from inside (1) and outside (2,3) the roosting barn area
We have had bears coming through our poultry and garden areas for over a decade, without any poultry damage, so far. The one that did have an apparent interest in eating the poultry, rather than their feed, was not able to get into their roosting area. He actually ripped off the latch holding the door closed, but then didn't try the door a second time. A little luck never hurts!
So last weekend when a young bear (~200#) showed up on the property, we were more concerned about his lack of fear of people, than we were about poultry safety. But then about 6 AM the next morning, I heard a ruckus coming from the chicken house. When I got up there, with my shotgun - armed with squirrel shot - in hand, I found a very unhappy bear that was trapped INSIDE the enclosed chicken run - bouncing from wall to wall to ceiling to WSW wall - trying to get out!
The only thing that I could figure to do, standing there in the semidark in my bathrobe, was to get him out of the chicken facilities by opening the doors to the enclosed run and the larger fenced pasture - without getting run over. And sure enough, after several more more bounces off the walls during my retreat, he found the open door and headed back out of the fenced pasture with the encouragement of a shotgun blast.
I could hardly "bear" opening the door to the roosting area to see what he had done to the chickens, but they were all sitting up on their roosts, apparently enjoying the spectacle - with the exception of one old Cochin hen that had run out into a corner of the run, where she had managed to avoid getting trampled underfoot. The bear had dragged the feeder out into the run where it was crushed and empty. But how had he gotten in, and why didn't he go back out the same way?
The pictures below answer the first question, but I am not sure about the answer to the second.
from inside (1) and outside (2,3) the roosting barn area
