Meat bird disaster

[RBOutdoors]

Do you think a snake could have caused the initial injuries that sparked the picking

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I too think it was an inside job. Sometimes one chick will start a trend and all the rest of the birdbrains will follow. It's suspicious that all the injuries were so similar, raccoons usually aren't so discriminating.

 

[RBOutdoors]

The similarity got me as well. And why only the CX? I went to cover the pen for rain possibilities last night and found a decent size chicken snake near the pen. I wasn't able to kill it (but I can guarantee it isn't happy right now) and thought that maybe since the CX are the only white birds they were easier to see in the dark.

Who knows?? Water under the bridge now...

 

[Buster52]

I'm going out on a limb and say your predator is a chicken.

 

[montyhp]

Do a lot of reading in the predator forum. You can tell what kind of predator by the type of damage. If it is just the entrails it may be a skunk (usually you will smell it). Raccoons will also eat the entrails, but some of the meat, too. If it looks like it has been played with but not eaten it may be a dog. Could also be a hawk (is the top of the run covered?)

I have lost chickens to all of these types of predators. I kept finding dead birds (one per night for three nights). I had the waterer set just outside the fence so the chickens have to stick their head through to drink (that way they don't roost on it and mess it up). Turns out a raccoon was hiding by the water bucket and grabbing the chicken's head as it came out for water. The birds were pulled as far through the fence as possible and any accessible meat eaten.

By the way, i doubt if the other birds did that much damage to your CX.

 

[llanobilly]

I haven't seen a chicken pecked to death overnight, and I haven't seen entrails hanging from a pecked chicken. I have raised layers with meat birds, and the meat birds were the first to have bloody tail feathers. Leghorns seem to have the littleman complex and a thirst for blood, because they are relentless peckers. I always do a nursery brooder to toss bloody chicks into to heal. I've sent one in for one night and it helps. For blood to go from bright read to a coagulated maroon seems to help miss the radar of the other chickens. I've had Turkeys cut open in weird places from predators on the ouside of chicken wire. They seem to circle the perimeter in a panic and get ripped to shreds. 1/2" hardware cloth seems pretty impenetrable though. A shallow tunnel under the side could be revealing, because fatal pecking, or even entrails-revealing pecking seems unlikely.

 

[yinepu]

I haven't seen a chicken pecked to death overnight, and I haven't seen entrails hanging from a pecked chicken. I have raised layers with meat birds, and the meat birds were the first to have bloody tail feathers. Leghorns seem to have the littleman complex and a thirst for blood, because they are relentless peckers. I always do a nursery brooder to toss bloody chicks into to heal. I've sent one in for one night and it helps. For blood to go from bright read to a coagulated maroon seems to help miss the radar of the other chickens. I've had Turkeys cut open in weird places from predators on the ouside of chicken wire. They seem to circle the perimeter in a panic and get ripped to shreds. 1/2" hardware cloth seems pretty impenetrable though. A shallow tunnel under the side could be revealing, because fatal pecking, or even entrails-revealing pecking seems unlikely.

I've seen a chicken pecked to death in less than 8 hours... a few years ago we had a neighbor who had problems with his birds vent pecking.. he would check them in the morning when he would feed.. everyone was fine.. a few hours later he would find a dead hen.. entire vent pecked out and entrails gone.. he set up a camera thinking he had a raccoon problem and found out that his leghorns were starting the frenzy with a hen dead in only a few hours... ended up culling a few and got those plastic peeper glasses for the rest of the flock.. it ended his vent pecking problem.. but for a while he had lost a bird a day from the vent pecking

 

[mmktdox]

I can guarantee you that it's your laying birds picking on the CX. Last year was my first year raising chickens. I ordered 10 Barred Rock and 25 CX. I raised them together until about 5 weeks, that's when the layers starting picking on the CX. The CX are lazy and indifferent, the layers are busy, interested in what's going on around them and they don't do well together in confined spaces. I separated them and never had problems afterwards. As for predators, racoons will reach through chicken wire and grab the CX's. I lost three of mine last year, they were eaten through the wiring. I learned the hard way, too bad the birds suffered because of my inexperience. But you learn by doing. I've ordered two smaller batches of the meaties this year, 15 CX for mid May and then 15 Bonnie's Heavy Red for mid July. I found 25 birds all at once was too much poop!

 

[RBOutdoors]

For those that voted for the leghorns, you are the winners. The remaining CX got isolated today. I sat and watched those leghorn pick and pick and pick. I am thinking of just isolating the Leghorns because my polish is missing part of its poof. Might just be easier.