I feel guilty as h***!

[FisherMOM]

I am so sorry for your loss. I have been even getting ansty about letting my chickens free range during the day after reading some of these posts.

 

[yotetrapper]

That is exactly why my chickens will never free range. My neighbor free ranges his, and loses about 75% of his flock each year to predators. He's ok with that. I'm not. I lose 3-4 a year even in my fort Knox coop, couldn't fathom turning them LOOSE. When I weed my flowers, the chickens get the greens, and my dh is sure to mow the grass around the coop so that it goes into the coop. They love that.

 

[greyhorsewoman]

Possibly a fox, too. They haul off their kill and bury it for later. They are also very trap savvy and difficult to live trap. They are very active this time of year. We've had them at the barnyard at all times of the day!

 

[Rowanm77]

Well, I know for sure at least a racoon was one of the predators, I actually saw him last night! He went up the tree when I went out to close up. He (She?) had been eating one of the eggs I'd put out for bait, reaching through the side of the trap with its hands. I put another egg, fresh from under the chicken, into the trap and poked my thumb through it and put it under the very sensitive trigger plate. This morning the trap (12" X 12" X 36" long) was closed but empty and the egg was gone. I think I need to cover the sides because I suspect the coon isn't going inside, just reaching through the sides to get the bait.
I still think there must be a fox involved too because I never heard of a coon carrying off 3 big ducks with out a trace and they didn't have wing feathers enough to fly out yet.
I have confirmed all my babies are gone along with one adult hen and 4 half-grown RIRs.

 

[mmajw]

It could have been coons they can travel in small groups and if they have babies then they would make trips to feed their young. You will have to trap them and kill them before they get to daring and come after more even if he coop is closed.

 

[jjthink]

Heartbreaking - I'm so sorry. Haunting, imagining what horrors our babies endure when they are taken by a pred. I wish I could rewind the clock for you - I would do it in a flash.

I live in fear that I will think I shut the coop but that I will actually not have done so. So now I'm a crazy person, checking at least 3 times, like the people that check over and over to see if they shut off the coffee pot. And still I worry - did I really check 3 times, or was that last night? Or did I imagine it? AUGHHHHHH!!!!!! It may be time for the looney bin.

It may do your remaining birds some good to have a couple of drops of Bach's Rescue Remedy in their water for awhile. It is known for its calming effect.....

So sorry.....

JJ

 

[ninjapoodles]

I'm so sorry--I posted not long ago about doing exactly the same thing, and I felt exactly the same way you do now. We blamed raccoons at first, since early on we'd lost three babies to raccoons, but the night I left the door to the chicken yard open (and 23 out of 28 chickens were killed), we're pretty sure now a fox, or family of foxes, were the culprits. We set up a motion-sensor gamecam, and captured the fox making multiple appearances on following nights. Thank goodness for electric fence.

The aftermath of our massacre was 7 dead birds lying on the grass, without a mark on them, and 15 birds *vanished*. It was a nightmare.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but I bet I won't be forgetting to lock those birds up again for a long time to come.

 

[annaserv]

How sad! I'm always paranoid about my door locks because I know our place is swarming with predators.(Raccoons, skunks, foxes, hawks, and who knows what a bear might do if bored, no screen is going to stop them)

Baby coons are born in March around here and they could be active participants along with mother by now. It's very rare to just have one single raccoon.

I know I have a family of coons living somewhere in our hayloft right now and this story should put a little fire in me to get out the live traps.

I've had really good luck with bread with honey drizzled on it. (one year I quit counting after 35 raccoons caught) It seems not to attract our farm cat like other things.

I just sooo hate it when I have to deal with a skunk in the trap.

If it's a fox, good luck, the adults a really smart and can get out of the smaller live traps. With the smaller traps there back end keeps the door from totally shutting and they can back out. The little ones seem easier to catch, maybe more curious? But I do have to get out my extra large live trap out when dealing with them.

Sorry again about what happened

 

[joebryant]

Dang, that's awful. I'm truly sorry that you had to see/experience all that. I'd be sick if that happened to me. Mine are still young, almost five weeks, and won't be coming out of the coop I'm building until I have a run that's built like Fort Knox. I'm reading everything on here about how to fortify my run when I build it, probably next month. I still have another coop to build after I finish this week with the one that I'm working on now.
Awful as it is, it's good that posts like yours are on here; they give everyone fair warning and a wakeup call if they aren't protected as much as they should/can/could be.

 

[Rowanm77]

Argh! I though I had everyone locked up tight last night and my brother even came out and shined his flashlight and saw no one loose. This morning the lady from the state came to test my birds and we discovered my turken (naked neck) chick just outside the coop door with a bad bite to the back of his neck. I don't think he's going to make it.

I guess he didn't make it back in before dark & we thought he was in. The lady saw my trap and said it was okay and legal and warned me about catching a skunk!

Everyone else seems to be doing okay for now.