vivaciouswoman
Songster
- Sep 14, 2015
- 246
- 341
- 177
We’ve lost a bunch of our girls to foxes, but we’ve ben fencing and slowing that down pretty well by keeping the girls (and 3 roosters—2 Easter Eggers and a massive Black Jersey Giant mix) in their run until after noon.
Everything was cool when I checked at 3:00 pm today, but I just went out and found massive amounts of feathers in several spots. I’ll post photos.
I sure wish the chickens could talk, because I cannot figure out what happened. There were three separate engagement areas. I’ve found no nearby corpses, and the most obvious target girls are accounted for.
Location 1:
Setting—Just outside the run on the open side, pretty hard to get to from the woods.
Evidence—Some buff colored feathers along with unidentified white and gray feathers (See Location 3 for more!)
Thoughts—Not a ton of feathers, and all of them are soft and fluffy—both colors. I did a cursory look at our Buff Orpingtons, and they all seem fine. No sign of blood.
Location 2:
Setting—About 10-15 feet north of Location 1. Not on the side of the run accessible from the woods.
Evidence—Full feathers, pulled out cleanly. Dark colored; from one of our Easter Eggers? Not a lot of them—photo shows about 6, which was half of what I found. No blood.
Thoughts—Did a rooster engage here?
Location 3:
Setting—This is the one that initially caught my eye. It’s 50 feet north of Location 2 in a field pretty hard to get to from the woods. Next to the compost piles the girls love to scrounge.
Evidence—a sh:tload of feathers that do NOT belong to any of my girls. White on the outside, gray nearer the pin area.
Thoughts—We have had unsuccessful hawk attacks, so an air attack is possible or neighbor dog could be involved. But who lost these feathers?? The predator perhaps????
Thoughts???
Everything was cool when I checked at 3:00 pm today, but I just went out and found massive amounts of feathers in several spots. I’ll post photos.
I sure wish the chickens could talk, because I cannot figure out what happened. There were three separate engagement areas. I’ve found no nearby corpses, and the most obvious target girls are accounted for.
Setting—Just outside the run on the open side, pretty hard to get to from the woods.
Evidence—Some buff colored feathers along with unidentified white and gray feathers (See Location 3 for more!)
Thoughts—Not a ton of feathers, and all of them are soft and fluffy—both colors. I did a cursory look at our Buff Orpingtons, and they all seem fine. No sign of blood.
Setting—About 10-15 feet north of Location 1. Not on the side of the run accessible from the woods.
Evidence—Full feathers, pulled out cleanly. Dark colored; from one of our Easter Eggers? Not a lot of them—photo shows about 6, which was half of what I found. No blood.
Thoughts—Did a rooster engage here?
Setting—This is the one that initially caught my eye. It’s 50 feet north of Location 2 in a field pretty hard to get to from the woods. Next to the compost piles the girls love to scrounge.
Evidence—a sh:tload of feathers that do NOT belong to any of my girls. White on the outside, gray nearer the pin area.
Thoughts—We have had unsuccessful hawk attacks, so an air attack is possible or neighbor dog could be involved. But who lost these feathers?? The predator perhaps????
Thoughts???
