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Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
Sorry for the stumbles you took early on raising your chicks and ducklings. Do you know what happened to the one that was plucked bare? Was that a predator or did the others do it?
 
BlueBaby said:
Hello, and welcome! Glad that you joined! Good luck with your flock. You need to figure out what is happening to them, and put a stop to it.
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Not yet. I stayed up coon hunting all night the other night. Killed one for sure, shot another and it ran away. They weren’t the culprits, but they were in my pen eating my duck’s food, so I wasn’t testing those waters and giving them a chance to run out of food and go for my chickens. I believe it was a hawk, though I’ve never seen one. There was no trace of blood, feathers, or broken fences. Almost as if someone just walked in the pen and took them.

I have a yard ornament flower pot hanger that I put in there with an empty bird feeder and a wind chime hanging from it. I also put an obnoxious pink mop bucket on a corner post where the coons were coming in at. But I need to go thank the farmer down the road for having his gun shot noise maker in his rice fields going off. I think that helps. Hopefully he keeps it on until I order and install owl decoys on 2 of my corner posts of the pen.

If you have any extra advice for now, I’m all ears!
 
ChickenLadyInTheCoop said:
Not yet. I stayed up coon hunting all night the other night. Killed one for sure, shot another and it ran away. They weren’t the culprits, but they were in my pen eating my duck’s food, so I wasn’t testing those waters and giving them a chance to run out of food and go for my chickens. I believe it was a hawk, though I’ve never seen one. There was no trace of blood, feathers, or broken fences. Almost as if someone just walked in the pen and took them.

I have a yard ornament flower pot hanger that I put in there with an empty bird feeder and a wind chime hanging from it. I also put an obnoxious pink mop bucket on a corner post where the coons were coming in at. But I need to go thank the farmer down the road for having his gun shot noise maker in his rice fields going off. I think that helps. Hopefully he keeps it on until I order and install owl decoys on 2 of my corner posts of the pen.

If you have any extra advice for now, I’m all ears!
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If you think it's hawks, you need to put a cover over the run. And the coons will continue to come into the pen unless you reinforce with 1/2" hardware cloth with no openings anywhere in the run larger than 1/2". A 2' wide anti-dig apron is also highly advisable.
Following are some interesting pictures off the internet of the effectiveness of owl decoys.
hawk on owl decoy 1.jpg hawk on owl decoy 2.jpg hawk on owl decoy 3.jpg
 
Pork Pie said:
Hi and welcome to BYC and congrats on your new hobby. Sex links involves the cross-breeding of specific feather colour birds to produce off-spring that can be sexed at hatch.

Here are some links to key resources:


Best wishes

Pork Pie
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So how does it work? How can you tell what it will be if it has the color of both the mom and dad?
 
DobieLover said:
If you think it's hawks, you need to put a cover over the run. And the coons will continue to come into the pen unless you reinforce with 1/2" hardware cloth with no openings anywhere in the run larger than 1/2". A 2' wide anti-dig apron is also highly advisable.
Following are some interesting pictures off the internet of the effectiveness of owl decoys.
View attachment 1796294 View attachment 1796297 View attachment 1796298
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WELL THEN! Forget the decoy lol
 

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