HELP i'm a new chicken owner and two days ago i was given 2 chickens and a rooster (no idea what kind). and this morning my rooster woke me up i went outside and didn't see the 2 girls (who always stuck together, i called them thelma and louise). so i went near the tree they were liking to hide and sleep bahind i couldn't find them but then i looked down and saw a few spots of blood and two feathers. so i got worried a looked franticly everywhere and there is no trace of feathers, blood, a struggle, no body parts. and now my poor Mr. Cocks (the rooster) is walking everywhere like he's looking for them. Please Help with any suggestions. i live in Tampa, fl. i dodn't think there are foxs or coyotes in the city all i can think is that it's a hawk or something, i just can't believe that both of them are gone at the same time.
Not sure, many things could have happened. Lets start with how old or how big were they. It would have been difficult for a hawk to carry off a full grown hen.
I'm sorry about your birds. Predators will walk off with whatever they can. A good coop is a good precaution against predators. In the city you will still find raccoons, possums, foxes and even coyotes although I'm not sure coyotes are prevalent in Florida. Once again, sorry to hear that.
I think that in the actual city your chickens are most likely to be killed by stray dogs or cats. I was born and raised in West Palm Beach Florida and have spent the past 7 or 8 years in Vero Beach and Sebastian Florida. I live in South Georgia now, been here for about a month and a week or so. Sebastian has a few elusive bobcats lurking in small forested areas. And Possums and Raccoons have always been a big problem in Florida. Sorry to hear that your hens are gone, my heart goes out to you. I had my husband build a coop thats up off the ground and fully enclosed in minus the tiny holes in the chicken wire. The bottom of the coop is surrounded by more wire to keep out possums and raccoons. I am upset at the fact that he flat out refuses to put a roof of any type on the scratch yard. He'll never hear the end of it the first time one of my birds get taken by a chicken hawk. Anyhow... You take care and hope things work out in the end for you and your rooster. Poor guy.
i think they were young but they weren't real big probably about two piegens put together. i just think if it were a raccoon or dog wouldn't there have been more feathers. and good luck finding a coop in Tampa, i have a large dog crate and i'm going to home depot to get the small wire to put around it for now and we put it up on blocks. i hope that works. thanks for the advise.
All but very central Phoenix has coyotes spotted regularly. I've seen more than one in my neighborhood. One was seen yesterday at 16th and Camelback and that's quite a distance from Phoenix Mountain Park.
I had an opossum get a hold of one of my ducks and it grabbed it by the top of the head and pulled out feathers and made a huge hole in the top of it's head. The only reason it didn't drag it away was because it couldn't drag it through the fencing. When I first noticed it there was a few feathers and a few drops of blood outside the cage, then I noticed the duck. She is still alive but she wouldn't have been had she been out. I would keep an eye out for opossums. We have HUGE opossums here and they have been known to drag off full grown chickens.
I had a feral cat get one of mine, climbed right up the side of our coop on stilts and found a hole at the top of the door to squeeze through (we've blocked that hole since then). All that we found was some feathers and not even a whole lot of those. Edited to say: The coop is on stilts, not the cat...LOL.
