God News and Bad news.
First the good news: Right now I've got 15 chicks that have hatched out.15 eggs still to go since today was only day 21 and I try to give a day or two longer to give every egg a fair chance. So far this is turning into my second best hatch this year. Hopefully they all survive past the one week mark (then I will consider it a success because hatching is half the battle, surviving once the absorbed yolk is gone is the other half). Figured I had a disaster on my hands since there was no turning but there was only one stuck chick-first, stuck in shell, then stuck on rubber shelf liner followed by a bath to get him/her fluffed up and now you can't tell which one he was. Have one that looks smaller, almost bantam sized, that I hope will not be the first to die (I hope none of them die actually but there always seems to be one, even with store bought chicks).
Now the bad news: the broody I mentioned earlier with 8 babies was killed last night along with 4 of her babies.She was a AustraWhite and 3 of the chicks were white and I think a coon or possum could see them in the dark because the darker chicks were the ones to survive the attack. No sign of the 4 chicks and only her head and guts were eaten. She had them settled down for the night under the coop and I didn't feel like trying to crawl under to grab her and the chicks then crawl back out to put them into the coop-have ducks in another pen and they are always next to the fence plus I had the unhatched eggs as bait in the trap so I thought she'd be ok for a night or two until the chicks learned to navigate the ramp but I was wrong. I now have the 4 six-day old chicks in the house with the new hatchlings. The only good part about her being gone is that I now have a place to put the 7 one-month old chicks and her body is now in the trap so I'll get the varment that got my girl. If it ends up being the skunk that was let go earlier in the week, stink or no stink, it will not be allowed to go free. (Caught two skunks over the years, and because they relax the muscle that holds their "perfume" when they die, we haven't killed them.)
Well, I'm going to look at the chicks and eggs once more and then go to bed - it's way past my bed time.
CG
I hope you catch the varmint. What type of traps? First I use a live trap and if that doesn't work I set a circle of leg traps around the body. I have caught a Bobcat, Possum, fox and others in both live and leg traps, but found the leg traps usually work best. Some people may think it's cruel but I hate loosing birds to predators. One morning I went out to my chick coop and had chicks that were around 2 months old and found 14 dead, Some without their heads and some with their heads. I have since put electric around the pen and covered it with netting. Haven't lost a chick since. I had Pheasants in that pen and coop before and a Bobcat got in and killed several of my young Pheasants. I had the netting over the pen but didn't have the electric around it. The Bobcat killed several of the youngsters one night by digging under the fence. I put leg traps out that day but nothing that next night. I left the traps out for another night and caught the Bobcat. The traps were set inside their pen so he had to go under the fence again to get into the traps. I also have caught several skunks in live traps. One was digging under their fence and I went out to shoot it and it wasn't afraid of me. I stomped my feet and it stomped it's feet back at me. That is when I went in to get my gun, but my husband wouldn't let me shoot it because it was too close to the house. I had shot one before close to the house and it stunk so I dug a big hole way back on our property and whenever I caught a skunk again I took it out by the hole and let it out of the trap then shot it. Before I did this I contacted our local wildlife people and they told me that skunks weren't endangered and I could shoot them. In about a 2 week period I shot 13 skunks. I heard from one of our neighbors that someone had been catching skunks and releasing them down our road. I guess since we are very rural they figured it was ok. Good luck. I hope you catch the varmint.
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15 eggs still to go since today was only day 21 and I try to give a day or two longer to give every egg a fair chance. So far this is turning into my second best hatch this year. Hopefully they all survive past the one week mark (then I will consider it a success because hatching is half the battle, surviving once the absorbed yolk is gone is the other half). Figured I had a disaster on my hands since there was no turning but there was only one stuck chick-first, stuck in shell, then stuck on rubber shelf liner followed by a bath to get him/her fluffed up and now you can't tell which one he was. Have one that looks smaller, almost bantam sized, that I hope will not be the first to die (I hope none of them die actually but there always seems to be one, even with store bought chicks).
She was a AustraWhite and 3 of the chicks were white and I think a coon or possum could see them in the dark because the darker chicks were the ones to survive the attack. No sign of the 4 chicks and only her head and guts were eaten. She had them settled down for the night under the coop and I didn't feel like trying to crawl under to grab her and the chicks then crawl back out to put them into the coop-have ducks in another pen and they are always next to the fence plus I had the unhatched eggs as bait in the trap so I thought she'd be ok for a night or two until the chicks learned to navigate the ramp but I was wrong. I now have the 4 six-day old chicks in the house with the new hatchlings. The only good part about her being gone is that I now have a place to put the 7 one-month old chicks and her body is now in the trap so I'll get the varment that got my girl. If it ends up being the skunk that was let go earlier in the week, stink or no stink, it will not be allowed to go free. (Caught two skunks over the years, and because they relax the muscle that holds their "perfume" when they die, we haven't killed them.)
