Ghost predator is wiping out my flock. Help!

[Oregon Blues]

Maybe, since it doesn't leave footprints, you have been raided by a chupacabra. Try to get it on game cam. Photos could be valuable.

(for those of you who lack a sense of humor, that is a joke)

 

[Jungleexplorer]

The heads were pulled through the pen and eaten off up to the breast, but the bodies were still in the cage. I get tons of pictures of coons on my trail cam that covers my deer feeder. The coons do not mind the IR lights on the trail cam at all. If it were a coon, I would think I could catch it on one of my cameras. This animal, what ever it is, is really smart. My pen is actually a cage with walls and a top. The frame is made out of two inch oil field pipe and is covered with a type of old fencing that does not exist today and I don't know what it is called. The holes are about 3.5 inches high in a narrow triangle shape. The hole pattern kind of looks like this, VVVVVVV, except that V shape is more narrow. A sparrow or a new chick could get through it, but that is about it.

 

[Y N dottes]

but a chickens head can apparently get through, right?

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Well, a two and half month old pullet's head at least.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Maybe, since it doesn't leave footprints, you have been raided by a chupacabra. Try to get it on game cam. Photos could be valuable.

(for those of you who lack a sense of humor, that is a joke)

I would laugh, but I am too upset right now. I do appreciate the humor though.

 

[Y N dottes]

I would laugh, but I am too upset right now. I do appreciate the humor though.

i dont blame u for being upset.....this kind of thing would frustrate me

 

[KrisH]

The frame is made out of two inch oil field pipe and is covered with a type of old fencing that does not exist today and I don't know what it is called. The holes are about 3.5 inches high in a narrow triangle shape. The hole pattern kind of looks like this, VVVVVVV, except that V shape is more narrow. A sparrow or a new chick could get through it, but that is about it.

http://www.okbrandwire.com/v-mesh-keepsafe.htm Something like this?

RobertH

 

[centrarchid]

For short-term get targetted birds to roost in box with pen being visited. Use carcass to bait a live-trap.

 

[welasharon]

All my pens are covered in 1/2 hardware cloth. The o shamo pens are 2x4 welded wtih hardware cloth around the bottom two feet (of one pen as where they roost they are surrounded by solid walls) and the other pen has hardware cloth wrapped around where they roost near the 2x4 (this pen does not have solid walls). I had read on here of them pulling the heads and legs and such through and eating them so I did this as a preventative. It is costly but cheaper than replacing the birds and far less upsetting.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

http://www.okbrandwire.com/v-mesh-keepsafe.htm Something like this?

RobertH

Yes, like that but the spacing on mine appear to be smaller then those in the pictures. Like I said, big enough for a sparrow or a new chick to fit through. Got the cage from an old farmer and it must be 50 or 60 years old. It is built like a tank. I penned a wild boar in it years back to see if I could tame him down and fatten him up. He would not stop charging and ramming the fencing, so I just let him go. But he could not hurt the cage.