I Think I have a two legged something making mischief with my flock..

[77horses]

Quote:
I agree. And also, I've noticed we have misisng eggs as well. But we suspect we have an egg-eater hen. But still...It would be easy for one of the neighbors (one neighbor in particular, who has been known to sick his dogs on our chickens and purposely letting them run loose because he doesn't really like our roosters!

) to get in and take some eggs...in fact we've been getting only 0-1 eggs now from 5 production red (Red Star) hens, all suppose to be laying and got done molting last month. So this makes me wonder.....

Good luck with the webcam and let us know if you catch the jerk who is causing all the trouble!

The nerve of some people!

 

[baltimoreharps]

Dh hasn't had time to install the webcam, poor guy is working 70+ hours this week, and I've been catching up on chicken chores and house work, so we haven't been able to do anything yet, Totally our fault on that, it's just been crazy with work.

Yesterday, I find the silkie dog pen open again, with no one out, but the door is WIDE open.

Dh calls me at 7:30 this am telling me the chickens were out again and all over the yard and the neighbor's yard. He didn't have time to get them rounded up,(left at 6:30 am and is dealing with calls already) so I need to get up and get them back in.

I get up, go out and sure enough, the gate for the laying flock is WIDE open. I personally shut that gate last night because it was so nice yesterday, I let them out to free range for a couple of hours with me sitting out there watching them and making sure they didn't go into other's yards while they were out because the neighbor's had just mowed the grass and they were all trying to get over there to the yummy clipped grass and hereded them back in, and shut the gate firmly. I made sure I did that because we have a couple of hens who like to try to make a break every time the gate is open for freedom of the horrible run where their food and water are, lol.

We are also missing 3 eggs that we should have had....

So, tomorrow, it's booby trap time and then after that, padlocks for the gate. I'm going to have to set up something different for a webcam,my laptop is old, so the webcam doesn't register anything without a lot of light,we did try it briefly, but it didn't work and dh and I both are very close to getting a game cam to find out who the heck it is doing this. I know without a doubt that it's not two of my close freinds who are neighbors. It's the new ones that I've already said, or someone I don't know.
Either way, it's creepy as all get out and I DO NOT like someone messing with my flocks!

If I get anything, I'll let you all know.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Any way to hook up the coop door latch to a car battery? Then all you have to do is listen

 

[baltimoreharps]

Quote:
OK, I just spit my pepsi all over the keyboard!!! That is GENIUS!!!

It would work if that dadgum sodium streetlight wasn't there to show it!!
My "adopted" son(see my sig) keeps volunteering to shoot it out and I keep telling him "No!" But the longer this goes on....oooh, Im getting more and more tempted to tell him OK since the power co isn't calling us back and I dont really want to get the landlord involved right now. They have enough problems right now and they haven't raised our rent in 7 years, even with the economy the way it is and let us have chickens, so I'd like to handle this myself as much as I can.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Run enough wire that it can't be easily seen. OR run it from the inside and cover it to keep the hens safe.

 

[baltimoreharps]

Quote:
I'm going to pass this onto dh this weekend when he's not so tired so he'll actually hear me when I talk to him.

We DO have a brand new battery in both cars, so....hmmm.....thinking.... and we are getting dirt for the garden this weekend, that should be a big enough distraction to run wire, etc....

Thanks!!!

 

[Kittymomma]

When I was 10 or so and my dad embarassed me in front of his friends I ran a wire from the electric fence to the under side of his car......It's really not all that noticeable and works very well.

Not sure how your set up looks, but maybe you could put the battery inside the coop and wire the door latch from the inside?

 

[AngieChick]

Can you just hook up a padlock?

Also, we have a rooster box that I made for my little roo. It's just a simple hinged box with some air holes drilled in (on the sides where no light gets in), we made it out of courtesy to our neighbors and ourselves. Every night he goes into it and he isn't allowed out until we decide that we are ready for him to crow his little heart out - around 9am. Sometimes if he hears his girls out and about without him he will crow in the morning, but it's within a box, within a coop, and hence fairly muffled.

Just a thought, it could give you a bit more sleep.

 

[sourland]

Kittymomma, you have got to complete that story!

 

[horsejody]

You could scare the poop out of the culprit with one of these.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Remote-Control-...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad83a995f