Killed during the day!?!?

[Semper]

I just heard a bird squawking sounded like a hawk or something it's 11:30 and it sqwaked a few times and now is done... Not sure if it's looking for small animals as we have two eagles around us and a hawk that I've seen in the past few years...

 

[new user]

We have 11 chickens (one rooster and ten hens) 8 months to 2 years. 6 chicks, and a footless chicken.. they were out in the yard like every other day! roaming around eating bugs and such and i found my footless chicken whose never too far from the coop shes usually 20 or less feet, was around 50 feet away. we found a baby about 50 feet under something in another direction and they usually not far from her, we lost for sure a golden, a red, and a little baby white one we found a lot of feathers from them... and one of my big babies and our black one are missing found no feathers or any sign of them. it was after 8 this morning and before 5 this evening but i think it was around 3 to 5..i found no marks or prints from any animal and my dogs have been locked up all day! my cat doesn't come up to the front (where the chickens are) she stays to the back by the horses or in the horse barn/arena.

what would do that? how can i stop it from happening again!?

Woke up Friday morning and before I left to run errands (8 in the morning) and saw a pile of feathers, and whatever got one of our leghorn pullets, left a trail of feather to a game trail at the edge of my property. I had them in the temp coop so whatever got it climb into the coop

I bought an animal trap and some snares, because earlier this week, my wife left and came back to a missing leghorn and black sumatra bantam pullet all in the middle of the day.

If you got a go pro, get it up on a time elapse to record during the day or night, and if you have a game cam, set it up around your coop somewhere. This will allow you to see what is going on at night.

Once you figure out what is getting them, then you can figure up a solution.

 

[thomasboyle]

Sorry for your losses. I have a bobcat that comes around on a regular basis during the daytime. The coyotes rule the night around here, so
the cats go out during the day.

Trail cameras are invaluable for determining what you are up against.

 

[Semper]

Ive been hearing screeching cawing noise at night for the past month like once or twice a week and i looked it up and it could be a fox or cat fisher, and i saw a skunk in my horse barn eating my cats food as i did chores around 1030 which is late for me and there it was staring at me!! but i dont think he had anything to do with it.

 

[Folly's place]

Skunks like chicken dinners too. Mary

 

[chickengeorgeto]

We have 11 chickens (one rooster and ten hens) 8 months to 2 years. 6 chicks, and a footless chicken.. they were out in the yard like every other day! roaming around eating bugs and such and i found my footless chicken whose never too far from the coop shes usually 20 or less feet, was around 50 feet away. we found a baby about 50 feet under something in another direction and they usually not far from her, we lost for sure a golden, a red, and a little baby white one we found a lot of feathers from them... and one of my big babies and our black one are missing found no feathers or any sign of them. it was after 8 this morning and before 5 this evening but i think it was around 3 to 5..i found no marks or prints from any animal and my dogs have been locked up all day! my cat doesn't come up to the front (where the chickens are) she stays to the back by the horses or in the horse barn/arena.

what would do that? how can i stop it from happening again!?

I can assure you that chickens can return the favor to skunks. About 1969 or 70 I had 3 early hatching hens as is usual with early hatched chickens only a few biddies hatched. I set them to hatch at the same time so I combined the chicks and put them all i one 4x4 foot 3 foot tall pen. As the chicks got larger I put a block under one corner of the pen so that the biddies could come and go as they pleased but the chicks had a home base to return to. I went by my chicken yard on Friday morning and something had killed the hen and all but 2 of the chicks. I took what was left of the hen and wired the body to the wire inside of the pen, then I set two steel traps in front of the pen, right where anything that returned to the scene of the crime would have to step on one or both of them to finish their meal. Early Saturday morning I was greeted by a skunk in one of my steel traps and the skunk had pulled the trap inside of the pen.

I had somewhere to be Saturday so i took the proverbial 10 foot pole and used it to push the pen onto its side. Now i had a skunk suspended between Heaven and Earth. I used my snake charmer shotgun to dispatch the skunk in place. Then after feeding and watering my birds i left. When i returned Sunday morning my hens (about 200 in number) had ate the skunk, smell and all. I didn't tell my wife because i knew that she would refuse to use the eggs because she would claim that she could "taste" the skunk smell in the eggs. The largest fragment of skunk i found was a half dollar sized fragment of its skull.

 

[dekel18042]

The only good thing about skunks is they are or should be nocturnal only and they aren't the most predatory of the predators. However if they come across eggs, good-bye eggs.

 

[Semper]

Our coop is completely shut up so nothing in and nothing out, I saw it agian this night about 1030 agian in May horse barn with my cats food, so tomorrow night around 1030 ish me and dad are going to visit it until it's 'gone' if it comes back for her food like it has

 

[Folly's place]

My barn cats are fed meals of good cat food; they clean it up in a few minutes, and it's never available for other critters. No skunks, raccoon, rats, possums, whatever. Life is much better, and safer. Mary

 

[Lovingchicken]

Wow! Great Job catching the Bobcat on your camera! So what did you do? Do you still let your chickens out during the day?