Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[sarahconnor]

ive recently lost 4 to a skunk. UGH! Coyotes are also a big problem!

That’s awful. How did you know it was a skunk? Just the smell and missing birds?

 

[sarahconnor]

I can't believe I neglected to put skunks on the lists.

We just shot a rabid young skunk that squeezed through chain link and got in yard with birds. The chickens managed to fend him off till we got home and could deal with him.

 

[chicknmania]

We just shot a rabid young skunk that squeezed through chain link and got in yard with birds. The chickens managed to fend him off till we got home and could deal with him.

How do you know it was rabid?

 

[chicknmania]

The only problem that we have with skunks is that they want the eggs. We haven't had a skunk kill a chicken in over ten years. Hopefully not jinxing myself here. But they will try anything to get in and get the eggs, and/ or find a place in the barn to have their babies. If I have to deal with predators, I'll choose skunk over raccoon any day. For that matter, raccoons generally just want the eggs anymore, too. But they are next to impossible to discourage and I hate trapping them.

 

[Crystaluna13]

We lost 1 to a hawk...then he flew into our chicken run and wouldn't come out. It was almost dark and after 5pm the "Hawk Protection" groups won't come out to do a relocation. It took us over an hour to finally get him out.

 

[chicknmania]

We lost 1 to a hawk...then he flew into our chicken run and wouldn't come out. It was almost dark and after 5pm the "Hawk Protection" groups won't come out to do a relocation. It took us over an hour to finally get him out.

That happened to us once, too a long time ago. Well, actually twice. The first time was a Goshawk (not normally native here) who flew into our barn and thought he'd reached the local KFC, apparently He killed two roosters that I remember, and they were big roosters, too. I have a friend who's a wildlife educator and naturalist, and she came over at around 10:00PM, dragging herself out of bed, and brought nets. We just chased him with the nets until he finally tired out. Then she took him with her and released him the next morning. He was probably on a migration route, we never saw him again.

The second time was a little screech owl, maybe he was in there after mice or rats, idk. He wasn't a threat to the chickens, but they didn't know that. He left on his own.

 

[Tilhana]

I put hawk, as that's the only predator I've been unable to really protect against. I've lost chickens to an owl, a fox, and a cat (not certain about the cat, but I saw one lurking near the run earlier that day, and pullet in question had been attacked but not eaten, so clearly it was a well-fed pet!). But those all happened when the chickens were free-ranging, so I've learned to be more careful about when I let them out, especially during peak predator season.

But a single hawk took out 2 young birds in a single attack (a teenage chick and a gosling), while they were in the electric fence, in the middle of the day. Might have taken more if I hadn't come out and interrupted it. My run is way too big to cover, so all I can do is provide shelter, keep roosters and guard geese, and try to deter them.

Surprised to see dogs so high on the list, though. Don't people keep their dogs fenced in? I realize they occasionally get out but I wouldn't think that would be enough to account for so many people compaining about them. Makes me nervous cuz our neighbors have dogs, as close as next door. Sure hope the electric fence keeps them out if they ever escape...

 

[TARDIS37379]

I put hawk, as that's the only predator I've been unable to really protect against. I've lost chickens to an owl, a fox, and a cat (not certain about the cat, but I saw one lurking near the run earlier that day, and pullet in question had been attacked but not eaten, so clearly it was a well-fed pet!). But those all happened when the chickens were free-ranging, so I've learned to be more careful about when I let them out, especially during peak predator season.

But a single hawk took out 2 young birds in a single attack (a teenage chick and a gosling), while they were in the electric fence, in the middle of the day. Might have taken more if I hadn't come out and interrupted it. My run is way too big to cover, so all I can do is provide shelter, keep roosters and guard geese, and try to deter them.

Surprised to see dogs so high on the list, though. Don't people keep their dogs fenced in? I realize they occasionally get out but I wouldn't think that would be enough to account for so many people compaining about them. Makes me nervous cuz our neighbors have dogs, as close as next door. Sure hope the electric fence keeps them out if they ever escape...

As far as dogs go, they are always an issue. In February 2019 I had a dog jump two fences and open a coop pop door and kill 18 chickens. He belonged to people about 1/4 mile away but they denied it was their dog and he went to the Humane Society, where he was rehabbed and adopted in a place where he could do better.
Chicken protection has to be layered, fencing, cover, safe spaces, solid coop entry, many other things that vary by what you have. I have gone to a physically and mechanically hard to open door and I pad lock the man doors. Raccoons can open a regular door or push open a sliding coop door.
This is a subject that I am now spending time studying to make my coops stronger and to help others.
I’ve shot more than one dog that was trying to get to my girls. I didn’t want to but when a dog turns and shows me his teeth and still tried to go over my fence, he got his butt filled with birdshot

 

[Tilhana]

As far as dogs go, they are always an issue. In February 2019 I had a dog jump two fences and open a coop pop door and kill 18 chickens. He belonged to people about 1/4 mile away but they denied it was their dog and he went to the Humane Society, where he was rehabbed and adopted in a place where he could do better.
Chicken protection has to be layered, fencing, cover, safe spaces, solid coop entry, many other things that vary by what you have. I have gone to a physically and mechanically hard to open door and I pad lock the man doors. Raccoons can open a regular door or push open a sliding coop door.
This is a subject that I am now spending time studying to make my coops stronger and to help others.
I’ve shot more than one dog that was trying to get to my girls. I didn’t want to but when a dog turns and shows me his teeth and still tried to go over my fence, he got his butt filled with birdshot

Ugh. That's got to be insanely frustrating. I've lost all taste for the idea of animals as "pets". Livestock is one thing - I have a mutually beneficial arrangement with my chickens, and I even have a cat that lives outside and is an excellent mouser who keeps my garden free of furry pests.

I think dogs can be very effective guards for livestock IF you train them well and get a breed that learns well and is very sensitive to social dynamics. But there are so many people who get dogs as pets or companions, don't train them, but feel like it's not a problem because they're so sweet to their human caregivers. I've heard from chicken owners that their dog-owning neighbors will reassure them over and over that their dog would NEVER hurt a chicken, they're too sweet, too docile, etc...and then one day that dog kills a chicken.

Dogs are carnivores and their instinct is to chase and kill anything that runs from them, unless you drill it into them that it's their JOB to protect those animals, and even then you probably get the occasional casualty - you just make the calculation that he protects more birds than he kills.

Now I'm really nervous because my neighbors are talking about letting their dog have a litter of puppies - because we don't have enough unwanted dogs in the shelters already, let's make some more and give them away to all the neighbors who don't already have one!

 

[mcdze]

everything likes chicken, hawks have been the worst for me .. the most diabolical situation is around here theres a type of hawk that will hunt in pairs or ive even seen 3 together one time .. there is no escape for the birds if they free range and youre not around and 2 or 3 hawks coral them, they will kill every chicken, nothing but piles of feathers dotting your yard .. before i learned my lesson about locking them up good at night and not letting them out early i had other issues to sporadically .. im sure bobcats and foxes have been involved in snatching a bird off the roost when ive left the coop open .. early on (ive been raising chickens about 14 years now) i went months with no issues but it 'will' happen sooner or later without a rigid lockdown schedule .. another unlikely problem i had was a local neighborhood house cat .. sometimes a bird decides it doesnt like the coop for whatever reason its being picked on or maybe gets a nest going in the bushes and gets broody etc and doesnt file in at feeding time .. those started getting randomly picked off and it wasnt a hawk, just a tore up mess ... finally figured out it was that cat that had been making his rounds in my yard for several years, it would wait and watch and get them after they were asleep at night .. i like cats .. but after i figured that out i put a pellet in his rear end from my benjamin marauder, no problem like that since ... far as coons, there just arnt any around here that i know of, i know theres possums but have never seen one anyway in the coop or after a chicken .. snakes, well i never had one take any chickens .. ive had rat snakes and black racers get in the coop through the wire and eat so many eggs they cant get out lol .. my first strategy is ride them down to the end of the street and drop them off to their new home lol .. i had one big rat snake i recognized by a scar come back! after a couple of weeks it showed back up in a nest box plum full of eggs just chillin .. sorry but i had to dispatch that one ..