Mystery Predator - Warning Graphic Pics!

[Jerimnz]

I did not know that..Mine went to the bone yard with a few 22. slugs in them. I had a few people berate me for killing them but I just could not see doing anything else. Had a few even say how could I kill such a cute animal. I took pictures of the carnage and showed them how.

 

[togo54]

Raccoons are infamous for gutting a chicken then leaving the carcass for other predators. I used to cut raccoons slack. No longer.

 

[firedove]

We fully intend that the trapped raccoons will not be leaving the property. I do love animals, but I need to protect my (now very small) flock and in New England I think it's pretty safe to say that there really aren't too many places you could relocate a raccoon without making it someone else's problem even if that was a legal option. I don't care if raccoons are living nearby, I don't even care if they decide to mess with my dumpster from time to time. But when they start eating my pets I have a problem! We had our barn cat go missing about one week before the chicken carnage. We had hoped she was out there somewhere but after the chickens were hit and now we see the culprit we are thinking it could very well be that poor Hera was this coon's first victim.

To answer the other question, the game cam we ended up getting is the Wildgame Innovations Blade X6 Lightsout. It was $99.99 at Dick's sporting goods. We chose it because it claims to have a flash that is invisible to animals at night. Other models have more megapixels, or other types of features, but we have noticed with our other game cams (we have 3 others, two WGI and one moultrie, all on the cheap end) that some animals have started avoiding that path or running past the cams to avoid the scary flash. This means we do not see when they are coming and going as well as we would like. We get lots of pics where the delay between the sensor tripping and the actual pic means a running animal is well out of frame by the time the pic is snapped. I know that there are game cams out there that have faster trigger to pic speeds and better options, but we are also on a tight budget when it comes to things that we don't technically "need" so the cheap models have to do. At least they give us some idea of what is going in and out of the yard when we are not watching.