Help diagnose (and eliminate) predators x2

[valdalefarm]

UPDATE - Predator #2 was indeed a skunk getting after our little chicks! I caught it trying to get in, and dispatched it with a shovel...didn't get sprayed, but I do kinda reek... Still on the hunt for predator #1 though.

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Hello, we are having two (now just one!) predator problems here. Trying to figure out a) what is getting our birds, and b) how to stop them.

#1 - We have had about 60, five-week old meat birds outside in electric netting, and about two weeks ago began losing, on average, one a night every other night (once, there were two kills), finding the bodies in the morning. Usually just the heads are removed and gone; occasionally guts may be exposed. (The second day of kills, when two birds were killed, all we found were the legs and thighs - but we heard a crow and found it in there eating the carcasses.) We have placed more ground stakes around the netting, to keep it taught to the ground, with no improvements, and the voltage is fairly high (around 4000 volts).

This seems to match descriptions I've read for weasels, although we haven't seen the mass killings that we also hear of happening. Last night I set up a weasel box with a baited rat trap, as well as a small baited live trap, but nothing so far (though the enemy wasn't "due" to attach last night anyway. The electric netting worked quite well for us last year, but I wonder if the small weasel is just darting through (the smallest openings are, I think, 2 x 3 inches). We have a netting with pullets next to the meat birds, but have lost none of them - and we've even switched their placement around, and the meat birds are still the ones getting killed. The pullets do have a small mobile shelter with roosts, while the meat birds have a truck cap for shelter. I've wondered about owls, but I'd think they'd take more than just the heads?

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#2 - (SOLVED) In the past few days started losing, or noticing the loss of, some 2 week old meat chicks in our barn. First one we found was split open, no head, and most of the guts gone (only found the gizzard). Last night I baited a rat trap near the gate (they are in a horse box stall) - it was moved in the morning, and I found where the culprit dug under the gate. The hole was about the size of my two fists, or my foot, so much larger than a weasel would need. I managed to find dropping nearby, and while the shape doesn't match anything I can find info on, I think I see insect wings, legs, etc, which matches what I've read of skunk droppings. Plus, we've had a bard cat get sprayed a couple weeks ago, and have found eggs shells here and there, where something has found eggs that our free-range hens have laid. So we know there has been a skunk nearby, just not sure if that would go for the chicks as well?

 

[rachlore]

That sounds bad, but you have to bury 15 inches of the fence under the ground to keep predators from digging under. And there are special things on mypetchicken called solar night eyes that flash bright lights at movement to scare it away. That might work for you. If not put up security cameras. that would help you find out what the predator is.

 

[valdalefarm]

Well, the predator getting into our brooder was indeed a skunk. I stayed up late, sitting outside with our meat birds. Came back to the house to check on the chicks in the barn, around 10:30, and caught the skunk in the act, trying to dig back into the brooder pen (I had laid some chicken wire along the ground to prevent digging in again). Shovel in hand, I snuck up best I could and gave that sucker a good whack - then I stabbed it - then whacked again and again - then stabbed it again, in the neck. And once more, for good measure. I didn't get sprayed, but I seem to have picked up its odor nonetheless...

Still working on figuring out what #2 is