Not a good year for my chickens

[wagoncab]

Well this has been a very bad year for me and my chickens. I have lost 20+ birds over the summer. Ducks too.
I let mine free range in the day time and close them up at night. Many times it would be dark when I would close
their doors. At first I didn't really notice since I had so many but when some of my favorites disappeared, I started
counting. Then I started looking along the fence line where I would see them go in the day time. Then I started
finding feathers. I would follow the trail and find huge piles of feathers and nothing else. No body parts. At first I
thought maybe a feral cat or a fox. This was in the daytime only. After talking to my farmer/hunter brother this
last weekend, we decided that it is coyotes. A cat or fox would not be able to eat a whole full sized chicken. We
know they around and I did see one in our pasture one evening around 7.
These varmints lie in wait in the bushes and grab my chickens and take them back into the bushes and eat everything.
I have been so depressed and sad over losing some really nice birds that I almost gave the rest of the birds away. What
I have left is now penned up and safe.
I guess we are going to try and make a fenced in area for them so they have some room to run around and be happier.
We have been offered some free chain link fence so we will see how much we get and go from there.
The coyotes have no predators so they just keep multiplying. I think I am going to take up coyote hunting,

 

[enola]

Same problem here, but foxes in our case. The fox got 8 of mine, ALL of my neighbor's, and most of another neighbor's. I now have all of mine in the chicken house, hoping for the best. I am now waiting for him to start digging in to get the rest.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Foxes grab them and store them and keep going back for more. I have a fox problem here piles of feathers nothing else. I keep catching everything else but it.

 

[Whittni]

They offer $50 an ear set in some parts of Utah, so it can be pretty bad here. Sorry for your loss, just remember the ecosystem works with all animals in the ecosystem...less of one equals more of another.

 

[thomasboyle]

Sorry for your losses. I have lost 10 ducks, 5 guineas and 1 rooster this year during the day to bobcat and foxes. I had to suspend their free ranging and set up a electric net fence surrounding an area of yard. Since putting up the net fence, I have only had 1 loss, the rooster who apparently flew over the fence to confront a predator and paid for it with his life. So I am going to expand the electric fence to give the birds more room to roam.