Human/Chickens 3 vs Predator 1

[MayberrySaint]

Well after a week of pre-emptive trapping, I had caught 2 possums...a juvenile and a nasty, crusty, old male.

Unfortunately, yesterday evening I found a large tuft of feathers near the coop and all the birds where inside before dark (a rare occurrence). A feeling of dread rose up when I looked at the feathers and knew that it was much more than the remnants of rooster love-making. I started to search the yard for a carcass and found it under some brush. Head missing...I knew it was a raccoon. My first loss...a light brahma pullet. So I put the carcass where I could see it and went and loaded the shotgun and decided to stake out and blast that dang coon when he came back to get the remains. Went inside for about an hour and when I got back...no carcass...dang!!! Thought I missed my chance. So I went ahead and baited my live trap with some chicken bones and gizzards courtesy of KFC. About an hour later, went out and shined my flashlight and there it is...a pair of eyes. Level the shotgun and just get ready to pull the trigger and the rascal runs behind the coop. I run around the corner and just get a glimpse of the assailant...it was a feral cat!!! I couldn't believe that a cat had taken my pullet and was worried that it may be hard to catch. So I went to bed...woke up this morning and lo and behold guess what was in my trap...a female raccoon!!! And it was ticked off...hissing, growling, spitting...
So after a very long drive to an appropriate location, she was released. I couldn't bring myself to shooting her because she was only doing what her instincts said to do to survive.
Moral of the story...no matter how safe you think your flock is...never let your guard down. I hadn't had any signs of predators in 6 months and live near downtown of a small city.

 

[chickflick]

Glad you caught the culprit! It's always so hard when you loose one and you thought it was safe for the babies.

 

[Poison Ivy]

I caught one this morning too.

 

[silkiechicken]

Hope you don't have the coon coming back. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Judymae]

That's horrible Mayberrysaint! I'm sooo sorry for your lose.

 

[bayouchica]

Sorry about your hen, Andy. Coons are some mean critters. When I lived in the city, we had the biggest coons I've ever laid eyes on.

My dogs give them a hard time around here.If ya have one coon there's 20 more.

 

[Bubba]

Sometimes cats aren't feral they are bored....
House cats kill because they can not because they have to(Not talking about feral cats, but well fed ones). I have owned two cats that literally would bring in 2 birds, a squirrel, mole, gopher, mouse(pick an animal) a day. Thankfully not chickens, regardless the two cats working together were death on anything smaller than them. They tag teamed cats and dogs also was something to watch. I sure do miss Jasper(Died when the animal food poisoning was going on). He literally looked like a miniture lion but he was black and white. Lionsmain and all.

Bubba

 

[ivan3]

He literally looked like a miniture lion but he was black and white. Lionsmain and all.

Maybe we have a relative (Major Woob - 15yr. old outside cat - doesn't eat chicken, but everything else gets processed).

Ferals will definitely stalk and eat chicken (watched two for over a half-an-hour as they worked their way up from the road, trying to get position on the flock, before they met the Turkey Vultures).​

 

[panner123]

Hope you took it a long way away from your place. I read somewhere that some students took a coon and marked it with paint, as a test. They drove the coon off 1 mile the frist night and added a mile each day until it didn't show up any more. If my memory hasn't failed me it was twenty some miles. Agian if my memory is correct, it was a school in Va. that did the study. It my be published somewhere in their records. Would have been easier to have made a good coon stew.

 

[MandyH]

What's up with the critters lately? Last night we shot an armadillo, there was a wild cat in the live trap this morning (re released elsewhere in the county) AND a hawk/owl ate a hen this afternoon while I was in the hatchery!!! Sheesh, I was expecting this when the cooler nights got here, but crap it ain't cooler here yet.