- Apr 20, 2011
- 19
- 0
- 22
Am wondering what killed my girls, what to do with my one survivor and how to avoid this in the future.
I had 3 girls, about 7 months old, raised from chicks. They have a very secure coop and attached run but during the day, we let them free range in the enclosed back yard. Around 4:00pm, something came and attacked them. We found one girl dead, neck possibly broken, she was basically untouched, had most if not all her feathers and no bites, claw marks, missing parts, etc. We are completely missing another girl but her feathers are all over the place - literally, from one side of the yard to the other, in the front yard and across the street! The attacker(s) obviously took her with them and it breaks my heart to think of how she suffered. The third is alive, we found her hiding in her coop in the corner. Her tail is completely gone. I don't see any blood, bites, scratches or anything but her backside and vent are completely exposed and she is scared. She was able to fly onto her roost and she dropped a soft egg without a shell, that's never happened before. I left her on her roost for the night, I thought maybe the familiarity of her coop would be good for her and since there are no other girls left, she won't be bothered.
We have always allowed the girls to free range during the day. We have a completely fenced in back yard, not predator proof but enclosed like many neighborhood back yards. The girls put themselves away at dusk and we lock the door to the attached run and coop which are completely 100% predator safe. I want to get more chicks but will need to figure out a safer place for the girls. And then, will incorporating new girls into my one existing hen's environment be an issue? Will she be OK on her own without any company until we get new hens? Oh, my heart is just broken about this, it is our first attack and I don't ever want it to happen again. My kids cried at bedtime, my son is in my bed, wants to sleep with mommy tonight, my daughter said her heart was broken into a million pieces. I'm just trying to make sense of it so it never happens again.
I've read up on the different types of predators and none of them seem to fit with what I came home to. We live in a suburban cul-d-sac, there is a small wooded undeveloped area next to us, we saw wild turkeys in our yard this morning, which is unusual and I wondered if maybe a raccoon had followed them and found our chickens but the attacks aren't consistent with what I read online about raccoon attacks. We live in Eugene, Oregon.
I had 3 girls, about 7 months old, raised from chicks. They have a very secure coop and attached run but during the day, we let them free range in the enclosed back yard. Around 4:00pm, something came and attacked them. We found one girl dead, neck possibly broken, she was basically untouched, had most if not all her feathers and no bites, claw marks, missing parts, etc. We are completely missing another girl but her feathers are all over the place - literally, from one side of the yard to the other, in the front yard and across the street! The attacker(s) obviously took her with them and it breaks my heart to think of how she suffered. The third is alive, we found her hiding in her coop in the corner. Her tail is completely gone. I don't see any blood, bites, scratches or anything but her backside and vent are completely exposed and she is scared. She was able to fly onto her roost and she dropped a soft egg without a shell, that's never happened before. I left her on her roost for the night, I thought maybe the familiarity of her coop would be good for her and since there are no other girls left, she won't be bothered.
We have always allowed the girls to free range during the day. We have a completely fenced in back yard, not predator proof but enclosed like many neighborhood back yards. The girls put themselves away at dusk and we lock the door to the attached run and coop which are completely 100% predator safe. I want to get more chicks but will need to figure out a safer place for the girls. And then, will incorporating new girls into my one existing hen's environment be an issue? Will she be OK on her own without any company until we get new hens? Oh, my heart is just broken about this, it is our first attack and I don't ever want it to happen again. My kids cried at bedtime, my son is in my bed, wants to sleep with mommy tonight, my daughter said her heart was broken into a million pieces. I'm just trying to make sense of it so it never happens again.
I've read up on the different types of predators and none of them seem to fit with what I came home to. We live in a suburban cul-d-sac, there is a small wooded undeveloped area next to us, we saw wild turkeys in our yard this morning, which is unusual and I wondered if maybe a raccoon had followed them and found our chickens but the attacks aren't consistent with what I read online about raccoon attacks. We live in Eugene, Oregon.
