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.
You could put out a pic-a-nic basket! But he may be smarter than the av-er-age bear.
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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.
OP can request that they update the title to add - Confirmed it was a bear or something like that.For those who missed it, there's a post on page 4 where the OP decides for sure what predator was responsible:
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.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!
Very good point @apryl29 !!OP can request that they update the title to add - Confirmed it was a bear or something like that.