Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[Alexis tomasetti]

Just two days ago I went out to find half of my stock were laying dead. Seen a hole in the fence and found two more ducks laying in neighbors yard and one chicken dead in other neighbors due to their dogs.i love my flock and it tore me up inside. They all have names I love em. Now the rest is in shock what can I do to cheer them up. I put them in a kennel which is a big kennel so they have room wrapped tarps around the cage with a heat lamp I’m open to more ideas

 

[Chicken Heel]

It depends on where you live and how well your confinement area is built. Out west the biggest is coyote in California, where Joe Rogan had many Chickens before the Fires hit his area and his coup was damaged. He had a temporary one built when he came back home and the (coyotes) ripped the roof off and killed the dozen or so he brought back. The poll is incomplete really because Crows are known to attack chic's and ducklings as well for food. Has anyone registered that? I am not picking on Crows since they are my favorite Birds, but they are scavengers and one of the smartest birds ever.

Crows will definitely take baby poultry and other baby birds as they are opportunists but the ones around my place also keep the various hawks on the run so they are okay with me.

 

[Nay]

how awful, I'm so sorry that happened.

Just two days ago I went out to find half of my stock were laying dead. Seen a hole in the fence and found two more ducks laying in neighbors yard and one chicken dead in other neighbors due to their dogs.i love my flock and it tore me up inside. They all have names I love em. Now the rest is in shock what can I do to cheer them up. I put them in a kennel which is a big kennel so they have room wrapped tarps around the cage with a heat lamp I’m open to more ideas

 

[Veronicakp]

Since I started posting about my problems here in the forums, the theft actually didn't occur anymore. I hope it will stay this way... I feel really bad when im loosing my chicks

I literally hate the feeling of loosing a chicken especially when I get so attached to them! It sucks. But I’m praying for a better year and I’ve been protecting my chickens better with the great advise I get on here

 

[MysteryChicken]

I lost 4 chickens due to a weasel early spring last year, & lost 1 due to a cat the day after.

 

[I_Love_My_Henihoos]

RACOONS!!! Crafty, atrocious killers.....even killed my old pet cat!

DOGS are second on my list...before I fenced everything in and out.

My only chicken causalities were to my dog, although we did kill a fox and a coyote going after our chickens. P.S. I am so sorry about your cat

 

[SBFChickenGirl]

Had a horrible fox attack last summer (2019). Killed 4 or so chickens are ran another 6 to death. Lost two of my show hens to the fox.

Seen him since, but my Great Pyrenees have done a good job scaring him off.
Had coons and Raptors get my birds. But the fox did the most amount of damage.

 

[mcdaid72000]

I lost one of my hens to a Raccoon one year and my rooster got injured, but he is doing fine. Somehow one of my hens survived. I can only guess the peck-no-more kept the raccoon from attacking one of my hens, but unsure how my rooster survived. Didnt put peck-no-more on my rooster. My chickens are more protected now.

 

[OneToManyChickens]

We have had problems with animals the worst two being dog and raccoon. We had a dog jump the fence and kill most of our chickens this winter, and a raccoon get into our coup and kill all but three of our chickens two years ago. Other than that things have been mostly good besides a hawk here and there.

 

[no fly zone]

RACCOONS! We had an extremely hard time trapping and figuring out how he was getting in. Every time we would think we had safely caged the chickens in for the night, sure enough we would go out the next morning he had gotten more. He never got any that were in the coop, but we had cages (that had young chickens in them) in the "run" are that was all fenced in and he had gotten the young ones. He ended up getting a total of 13 :*( Our coop is connected to an out door run type thing and it is completely fenced in. The fence is even dug a few feet into thee ground to prevent digging animals in. It also has netting over the top so they didn't fly out. We finally caught him and had a video camera out there and found out how he was getting in. He was HUGE. And he could manage to get into the trap get the bait chicken we would set it in, and NOT set the trap off. My dad had to TIE the chicken to the back of the trap. What a bad experience. But we learned from it and now we know how to keep them 100% safe.

How was he getting in?