Maybe a mountain lion?

[Kathi D]

I heard a commotion in the chicken yard at noon last week, checked it out right away and found one hen with some blood on her beak, so I assumed there was a chicken fight. Then I counted heads and one hen was gone without a trace.

Today my neighbor called to say that a mountain lion has been seen (again) in our neighborhood, and in the latest sighting, the lion was carrying a pet cat. She also said that she found black feathers on her driveway (adjacent to my chicken yard) so I went out to check the chickens. A Jersey Black Giant hen was missing, as well as my New Hampshire Red rooster. The "free-range" chicken yard is enclosed by a 5-foot high fence and completely shaded by pine trees so that it's not visible from the sky--also it's hard for me to imagine how a hawk could attack under the thick cover of trees.

I'm trying to figure out what predator would carry away chickens AND a quite fierce rooster in daylight. At night they are all locked inside a very secure henhouse, so the ones missing today had to have been taken between dusk-dark last night or this morning after the automatic door opened. I now have the remaining hens enclosed in the chicken yard which is fenced 8 feet high and completely covered, but I'm afraid to even let my small dogs out into the yard now that something is jumping the fence!

Any other ideas about what could have done this?

 

[redhen]

Wow.. does sound like a Mountain Lion to me..
Sorry about your birds..

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Not that it sounds like this is the case in this instance, but Coopers Hawks can and will work their way down through the trees and even dense ground cover to chase birds on the ground (if need be). Coopers are THE chicken hawk.

 

[greatergraceoffbg]

Thats really amazing, i think the idea of getting to see a mountain lion is so awesome I would put stay up late to see it,.....but as much as I love my chickens I would be extremely vigilant in locking them up until this animal passes through. Usually young males move in and out of areas very quickly. The only thing I question is your neighbor seeing it carrying off a cat. They usually dont bother with other felines. Could it be a mother moving her young, if so that could explain the animal resorting to chickens for food for her young. It also means you need to be careful not to confront her face to face as her maternal instinct would be very protective of her young. Just some thoughts!

Andy in Fredericksburg

 

[chickened]

You may consider talking to your local fish and game dept. We have lots of lions where I live they usually do not get chickens but they do indeed eat house cats and target them (stomach inspections) most likely it is a fox, bobcat or most likely a neighbors dog. A hawk will usually land a short distance away and eat till it is full and leave the rest for the scavengers. A fox can climb like a cat and if it was a cat you could walk within 5 feet of it and it would not move, they are good at concealing themselves. I put game cameras up regularly on my property just for my curiosity if anything.

 

[Ivywoods]

Did you look for tracks? Mountain lion track would indicate.... welll... a mountain lion. As far as using trees for cover over your run, I would invest in some of the nylon poultry netting. It will definitely foil the hawks and owls.

I have no experience with mountain lions. They are rare around here. I do know they like to drag their prey off to a secluded place to devour it. We've had a lot of bobcats, and they tend to take their meal just inside the edge of the woods. When we lived at our other place I had some free range turkeys and guineas. For a while we were loosing a bird a day. There was almost always a feather trail to where they went into the woods.

 

[woodmort]

Quote:
I doubt very much that a Cooper would be strong enough to carry off a mature Jersey Giant or NHR rooster.

 

[Kathi D]

I really would rather think it IS a hawk, of which we have plenty, because the thought of a mountain lion jumping the fence is freaking me out. The same height fence surrounds our very large yard, and after dark my little dogs like to run to the darkest corners of the yard to yap at ??? whatever. Now I go out with them, with a powerful flashlight to constantly scan the fence line.

It seems that we have mountain lion sightings every year or so, often around this time of year. I wonder if there is a mother trying to feed cubs, perhaps. My neighbor (not the one who actually saw the lion this time) says maybe the "cat" the neighbor saw in the lion's mouth was one of my large chickens. Who knows.

We are trying to figure a good way to cover the outside run area with some kind of hardware cloth--the trees make it a little complicated. Meanwhile I'm keeping the hens in the totally fenced-in run. My husband is playing phone tag with the county today to see if they might want to set a trap for the mountain lion. In the past, they have set traps for lions who were taking sheep nearby. They never caught a lion, but I believe if they did, they would transport it to a less-populated area.

I really hate losing these chickens, which are more pets than poultry, but especially Honi the rooster. I have a feeling that his loss will be unsettling to the remaining hens, as he was very protective of them and magnificently "roosterly." I was going to let one of the broody hens hatch babies this Spring. Now I guess I'll have to buy fertilized eggs for that project.

Oh, and I see I have to change my signature to reflect the smaller flock.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
I doubt very much that a Cooper would be strong enough to carry off a mature Jersey Giant or NHR rooster.

Didn't say it could, would or did carry the birds off. It would most likely eat it in place. And I did say that it did not sound like it was a hawk in this incidence. My point was that the OP stated that they felt that they were safe from hawks due to heavy tree cover, and they are not.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Any eggs they lay for the next couple of weeks are likely to be fertile if he was *ahem* active.

If there really is a mountain lion in the neigborhood, I would not be taking my dogs out AT ALL--they will hunt people.