Major attack - is this a bear?

[CluckerFamily]

Oh oh!! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier!!
You could put out a pic-a-nic basket! But he may be smarter than the av-er-age bear.

 

[Jenwisp]

Where in the Hudson Valley are you? We're in Bloomington, between Kingston and New Paltz. I haven't yet seen coyotes or fishers, but know they're in the area, and saw our first raccoon nearby a couple of weeks back.

We put in some fruit trees in April and they were devastated by deer within a day. We tried fishing line around t-posts, which did nothing, deer repellent spray (also didn't work) and ended up surrounding each with hardware cloth, which seems to have done the trick. With the ease of putting in this electric fence, if I was doing it again, I would definitely go down that route! Not least because to actually access the trees with the hardware cloth in place is a real hassle.

We're in East Durham, 20 minutes West of Catskill. And my family has possibly also seen a bobcat in our area. I'm not lucky enough to catch a sighting.

Deer are graceful and it's fun to watch them play... but dang if they don't love eating everything you don't want them to eat.

 

[Nigel27]

Leave a Radio playing, a boring talk station, if possible. People have been doing this in my hometown for years to keep bears away

 

[apryl29]

For those who missed it, there's a post on page 4 where the OP decides for sure what predator was responsible:

OP can request that they update the title to add - Confirmed it was a bear or something like that.

 

[RebeccaS2010]

Thank you to everyone on here for your great advice. Has really been very helpful. Hopefully this can be a useful resource for others that go through a similar disaster!
[/QUOTE]

Sorry for your loss, but thought you might want to know that this has already been a great resource for me. We had our first black bear encounter a couple of nights ago. We knew they were in the neighborhood, but had never seen them in our yard. We happened to be out late on the porch checking the brooder temp before bed (Florida cold front problems ), and saw the bear going through our fire pit for trash. When he heard my husband and I, he wandered over to our chicken run and investigated the door on his way out of the yard. I’m hoping he had an encounter with the electric fence. we made lots of noise, and he vanished. Reading everyone’s posts on here have helped calm me down that between the hot wire and making noise, we’ve done the best we could to further bear-proof our run and coop!

 

[apryl29]

How horrifying! So sorry for your losses. You may want to contact the wild life dept to let them know the bears attacked your coop. I'm not sure if it matters to them, but they may be tracking them or the bears might be going after others in the area. My brother was setting up his hunting gear in the woods behind my dad's house and found some bear scat. I put up my trail cam but haven't seen anything on it yet (it's only been a few days). After seeing this I'm now more worried about the safety of my birds.

 

[amenfarm]

Spoke to wildlife for DEC - they said either shoot it (not really an option) or put up an electric fence and hope that it's not too determined. They didn't seem too bothered about it being near the house, though. Ordered an electric fence, hope that it arrives before it comes back to finish it off!

Fortunately no cats or dogs that would be at risk - one of our neighbours also has chickens but think theirs are okay so far. We'll definitely warn them, though!

Look up how bee keepers set up their electric fencing for bears. it is pretty different than I would think to do. Do not leave any feed in the coop, that is really what it is after, the chickens/eggs are a side note. Be sure to store all the feed in metal containers to control the smell, I would actually spray the outside of the containers in some masking scent- like pine-sol, store any feeders/ scoopers- I'm all for any urine scent that might drive it off. An animal that can peel open a car to get to food, will only be stopped by electric fencing and removing what it's after. You can check to see if anyone has a program where the use bear dogs to scare Bears away. I would use a trail can, this may be a marked bear that the wild life people may need to know about.

 

[City Farmer Jim]

Will Fish and Game not help you...it may get tired of chicken and aquire a taste for you...give them a call.

 

[SegiDream]

Gosh I'm sorry for your losses. Bears really worry me and it's amazing to me how easy it went through that hardware cloth.

We have seen fox, bobcats, raccoons, possums, ferrets, coyotes on this property and scat that looked alot like bear. Our coop and run is 35 feet away from the house in a 5ft high fenced in yard. The chickens get fed in the morning and their food is allowed to run out during the day though they usually get some "treats" in the evenings. Lately I tend to spend the last hour before chicken bedtime out there with them. The feeder then gets put in a metal trash can overnight, the can also holds the feed bags. Food never goes inside their coop. Every door on the coop has multiple locking mechanisms and the ventilation is covered with hardware cloth and the tin roof was built on top of the hardware cloth.

All these steps were taken in attempt to avoid/ward off night time predators. I think a bear might be the only predator that has a chance to get into the coop and I've been antsy the past few days checking the coop at night. I think it's been on the back of my mind that hibernation time is coming up and am worrying more than usual. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea if it's legal to give a bear lead poisoning if it goes after chickens...

 

[aart]

OP can request that they update the title to add - Confirmed it was a bear or something like that.

Very good point @apryl29 !!