North Carolina

[Coop Scoop Boogie]

Good morning folks

sorry I have missed checkiing in the last few days

Meg.....I am sorry you had foxes visiting again

congrats Beth on your new bunnies.....bet they are cute

sure hope everyone can stay cool back there during the heat

it's been a balmy 80's here.....almost a bit cool to us
but we are enjoying the visit with family........I am enjoying a
few days of not driving anywhere

 

[xrainxbowx]

so i posted this in the predation part of the forum, but i thought i might put it here too, seeing as maybe people local to me might have a better idea of whats going on....its mystery predator time!!!

So this has really blown my mind. I have worked at numerous state parks and zoos and feel like I am pretty confidant with animal tracking. Yet something has got me baffled. This is my first year with chickens so I am hoping some of the more knowledgeable people on here can give me some insight. I have a large deep litter/open air coop. No run and birds free range with the exception of the little ones. The opening for the coop is about 3 foot off the ground and no ramp. the birds just hop on in. and then it is about a two foot drop to the bottom of the coop. The door area is 3x3. The floor is corn cob bedding than has broken down into sawdust consistancy with a thin layer of straw that the girls keep kicking out of thier nest boxes. So at 2:30 I come to collect eggs and all is well. Two of my newer girls that I just got a couple weeks ago still hang out in the coop and do not free range yet. They are young standard cochins about 3 or 4 lbs and were raised in a box in a shed until I got them so scratching and roosting and some other chicken behaviors are still new to them. Well I go in the house to do chores and I dont hear much of anything. Around 3:30 I come back outside and my dominant hen is the the box laying and there is a thin layer of feathers all around the coop floor and my cochins are no where to be seen. At first my thoughts are the dominant hen didnt want them in there while she was laying and had a little battle. Well I find one cochin as I am heading to my car but she is alone, and that is odd because these two girls were like glued together. So I start looking in the area for the other one worried that she is hurt. About 10 foot directly in front of the coop near thier brush that they hide in is just a couple feathers. Then I find about 6 foot behind the coop directly under a tree like shrub near the trunk is a huuuuuuge pile of feathers. And this is only 4 foot away from a dog run with 3 obnoxious hunting dogs in one direction and 5 foot in the other direction is a boser on a 50 foot leed. Whatever went on right there had no fear of dogs. So I get worried and go back around and I see no tracks or ground disturbance of any kind. I would think the amount of feathers in the coop with the corn cob bedding would show signs of a scuffle. No blood, no prints, no feathers scattered around, just in piles, in broad daylight. So I wander up throught my neighbor(read: parents) yard. Nothing there. Probably about 50-75 feet of clear open yard. Then when I go behind my parents house, a good 100 feet away from the coop, where our chickens never go. There is about 15 feathers in a sparse trail along the tree line that borders thier back yard. I follow it deeper in the woods and nothing!! I am really at a loss. I want to prevent this from happening again but it would help to know what is was. I cant think of anything that would come into a coop in broad daylight and leave no tracks. Any ideas?

 

[BHep]

so i posted this in the predation part of the forum, but i thought i might put it here too, seeing as maybe people local to me might have a better idea of whats going on....its mystery predator time!!!

So this has really blown my mind. I have worked at numerous state parks and zoos and feel like I am pretty confidant with animal tracking. Yet something has got me baffled. This is my first year with chickens so I am hoping some of the more knowledgeable people on here can give me some insight. I have a large deep litter/open air coop. No run and birds free range with the exception of the little ones. The opening for the coop is about 3 foot off the ground and no ramp. the birds just hop on in. and then it is about a two foot drop to the bottom of the coop. The door area is 3x3. The floor is corn cob bedding than has broken down into sawdust consistancy with a thin layer of straw that the girls keep kicking out of thier nest boxes. So at 2:30 I come to collect eggs and all is well. Two of my newer girls that I just got a couple weeks ago still hang out in the coop and do not free range yet. They are young standard cochins about 3 or 4 lbs and were raised in a box in a shed until I got them so scratching and roosting and some other chicken behaviors are still new to them. Well I go in the house to do chores and I dont hear much of anything. Around 3:30 I come back outside and my dominant hen is the the box laying and there is a thin layer of feathers all around the coop floor and my cochins are no where to be seen. At first my thoughts are the dominant hen didnt want them in there while she was laying and had a little battle. Well I find one cochin as I am heading to my car but she is alone, and that is odd because these two girls were like glued together. So I start looking in the area for the other one worried that she is hurt. About 10 foot directly in front of the coop near thier brush that they hide in is just a couple feathers. Then I find about 6 foot behind the coop directly under a tree like shrub near the trunk is a huuuuuuge pile of feathers. And this is only 4 foot away from a dog run with 3 obnoxious hunting dogs in one direction and 5 foot in the other direction is a boser on a 50 foot leed. Whatever went on right there had no fear of dogs. So I get worried and go back around and I see no tracks or ground disturbance of any kind. I would think the amount of feathers in the coop with the corn cob bedding would show signs of a scuffle. No blood, no prints, no feathers scattered around, just in piles, in broad daylight. So I wander up throught my neighbor(read: parents) yard. Nothing there. Probably about 50-75 feet of clear open yard. Then when I go behind my parents house, a good 100 feet away from the coop, where our chickens never go. There is about 15 feathers in a sparse trail along the tree line that borders thier back yard. I follow it deeper in the woods and nothing!! I am really at a loss. I want to prevent this from happening again but it would help to know what is was. I cant think of anything that would come into a coop in broad daylight and leave no tracks. Any ideas?

FOX..... females are out hunting all day...and teaching pups. A few of us here are having the same problem.

 

[Hollowoakfarm]

Quote: I'll second that. A coyote or bobcat could also do it, but it seems to be the Year of the Fox. Another friend of mine has a den in her backyard, and she's in town! Thankfully I'm not within range of those..

You just get the kill zone...the feather explosion, and the chicken is gone, mostly. Occasionally a light feather trail. Here I'll usually find feathers where they went through the fence, which is another indicator. Bobcat or coyote would jump the field fence, but a fox can go through, then pull the chicken through, which makes it lose feathers. Dog usually plays with it, then leaves it lay, although they may chew on it. Hawk often eats on the ground. Coon or possum usually can't carry it off or eat it all.

I've been rearranging birds this afternoon, and have a few more to do at dusk. Doing this partly because of the foxes and partly because of the heat. I've moved the Marans chicks into a hanging cage in the old rabbit barn where the bantams hang out, as well as the younger/smaller of the ones from Juvenile Detention into a seperate cage. Hubby will help me move the bantam chicks in a bit, as we have to move their whole cage, not transfer them. I have all the Buff Orpingtons runing loose in there right now. All the hens will go to the new henhouses this evening. The roo will be the one going in the small pen, and all the cockerels will go into that run. All the remaining teenagers in Juvenile Detention will get dispursed to their next homes. Some are smaller than I'd like, but they'll still do better where they're going than stay where they are. They'll go in the pen that doesn't have any mature birds in it, so should do okay. I've got freshly hatched bantams inside, and another lockdown in a few days, with a lot of eggs from Beth, but those can stay in for a while, too. And that will be my last hatch for a while, I think.

Got someone coming Sunday wanting soup birds, so five cockerels...or maybe four and that Buff roo..will go to him. That will lighten up the male numbers. Hate to see the lavender Orps go that route, but the foxes took most of the mixes after we promised him five birds.

Hope everyone is having a great day...

 

[scottcaddy]

I read all the posts from you all about the predators and have tried to fortify my little coop/run (hardware cloth on the sides, bottom lined with fencing, coon-proof latches on the doors, etc.). My four girls have their own little yard I let them enjoy when I'm at home - one side is the house, one is the coop/run/gate, two sides 6 ft. fencing (I live in a town). There is a huge magnolia overlooking part of that "yard" and just yesterday I was looking into it wondering if owls and hawks could be checking out my girls. Anyway, this morning, just as I was reading Hollowoak's post about the foxes, my friend came by (she's my chicken-sitter too!) and when I opened the door I heard a ruckus like you wouldn't believe, she said there was a strange cat on the other side of the fence she and her dog had just chased off. The girls were VERY upset when I ran back there! I have 2 cats who never go there and my two dogs were in the house with me but they are not exactly friends with the chickens. So I guess I can't let the girls out unless I'm back there. DH does not like the idea of putting netting between the coop and fences.

DH did just last night (without me even asking!!!) installed a small ventilation fan in the coop.

He also came home while friend and I were talking in the back yard, said someone in the neighborhood saw three guys last night going between our house and neighbor's (opposite side of chicken pen, unfenced) so now I have other predators to worry about. Lot's of stolen stuff in the neighborhood lately, hope they catch those jerks.

We used to have a very active and self feeding flock of 'Yard Birds' , even kept the horse pens cleaned up, no snakes, mice, wood roaches, not many flies!

Then the little old lady next door moved in with one of her kids, and they sold the house. The new people asked if we would sell them a couple of the yard birds for eating,

we said sure and thought nothing of it. Within a couple weeks we went from over 20 yard birds to about 4.

I never found any feather piles or any sign it was a 4 legged critter getting our birds.
Scott

 

[scottcaddy]

The foxes came back last night.

They hit the cockerel pen under the barn lean-to and got four. One lavender, which they ate in the back pasture and left feathers and a few guts behind, and three mixes, which they took away completely. Judging by the several feather explosions in a kinda circle, they used the lavender to teach the young ones how to pounce.

Poor guy. The door to that pen has never shut well, and I guess they figured that out last night and squeezed through. I'll move the remaining cockerels to a smaller but more secure pen this evening until that one is repaired. Hubby also plans to put the same type of buried and angled wire around the older henhouse/juvenile detention center, just in case. Never needed it before, but seems we do now.

Aside from that, it's still a lovely morning, so Good Morning Everyone. Stay cool out there.

Sorry about your Fox problems, I hope that you get it worked out! ( dead works for me)
Scott

 

[MaryRuthLangdon]

Well... hubby and I will be missing WCA this weekend... it will be the first one we missed since November 2011 (when we started going).

We will be staying home and keeping our chickens cool... over the next few days. It will just be too danged hot to leave them in the elements for hours without some type of cooling observation.

I am going to keep them sprayed with a water bottle a couple of times during the sweltering heat of the day.

Also, I am gonna put ice in their waterers and feed them some cool treats.
I feel so bad that they have to stay out in the heat.

 

[BennieLangdon]

Well... hubby and I will be missing WCA this weekend... it will be the first one we missed since November 2011 (when we started going).

We will be staying home and keeping our chickens cool... over the next few days. It will just be too danged hot to leave them in the elements for hours without some type of cooling observation.

I am going to keep them sprayed with a water bottle a couple of times during the sweltering heat of the day.

Also, I am gonna put ice in their waterers and feed them some cool treats.
I feel so bad that they have to stay out in the heat.

we could bring the little guys and gals inside............

......

 

[scottcaddy]

Quote:

 

[MaryRuthLangdon]

Originally Posted by BennieLangdon

Quote:
Umm... well that's NOT happening.

Where... does that man come up with these ideas????