Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[emvickrey]

Quote:
My lab chased away a skunk from our coop one night. Boy O Boy did she stink but she stood her ground and ran it off. We treated her like a queen, from a distance. It was winter time and I didn't want to soak her down with tomato juice and it freeze on her. As soon as it warmed up she got juiced. I left it on her and gave her a bath a week later. She was smelling like a dog again. We did buy that stuff from the vet to get the smell out but it don't work ($20 bucks down the drain),

Tomato juice is the way to go. I covered her entire body and used 4 large cans to do it. She looked like she had been in a masacre.

 

[emvickrey]

Quote:
You sound like me. Last year I lost at least 10 quail, untold numbers of baby chicks and at least 8 ducklings, 5-6 full grown bantam chickens and at least 1 LF hen to the rats. Oh, and we lost probably 30 pigeons to them too. The rats are finally gone thank God!

I lost more quail to my cat but they had gotten loose and I couldn't catch them so they where fair game. I didn't get mad at her. She won't bother any chicks or quail unless they are loose and im not around. She'll just lay down and watch me catch them. I'm sure what she's watching is those I miss.

I did have a raccoon get one of my breeder pens open one night. It got 1 and the other 3 got away. By the time we finally caught them out in the woods I was covered in chiggers. I made a note to myself not to ever do that again. We stopped counting all my spots at 152. It was probably the same coon that broke in the coop. No chickens where damaged. The raccoon was damaged.....fatally.

 

[4acresNachick]

we are new to raising chickens but our neighbor who's been raising chickens and turkey has lost five birds to foxes and a few to coyote. Bad all the way around until they fenced everything in and had to kill a few of the foxes. Now we are fencing everything in and hopefully that will keep the unwanted out. second in line would be the hawks. We have a lot of hawks around. I see them daily.

 

[Borncountry419]

Just last week I came home to find over 50 month old ducklings and chicks dead. Each had a bite in the head, neck, or back. I thought I had gotten rid of my problem when in winter I caught a mink that had killed a few adults (including a full grown goose). Apparently not. I was devastated at the recent loss of all these babies. So I put out two livetraps. The next morning before work, there was a mink in one. After work I went to feed the birds, and the other trap had another mink in it! Two in one day! I had thought they were territorial animals. Apparently not. Needless to say, I felt no remorse in sending those two to rest. Now every inch of my barn is secured (at least as far as I know), and there's a multitude of traps outside. The annoying thing is that mink can slip under a small gap under a door, whereas a raccoon or something couldn't. So if mink are native to your region, you practically have to make your enclosure airtight. They will kill until all of your birds are dead.

 

[ModestMouse]

I ran an electric fence around the top of my coup fence. I also buried some chicken wire fence about a foot underground all the way around. Best thing I ever did. I went over a year without a single strike. I lost two last week, though and discovered some critter dug a tunnel and chewed through the fence.

Grrrrr... Need to dig out the traps again.

 

[Jchantecler]

We have had owls take a lot of birds. Coyotes too. I hear that raccoons are a big problem as well. Our guineas fight back to owls and coyotes, so they get killed the most often. Dogs can also be really bad. :

 

[clturke]

I have 6 chickens from 2 weeks to 6 weeks, I put them in the yard during the day. I saw 2 long black snakes going toward then today. I brought them all in the house but now I'm afraid to put them back outside. Will snakes kill them when they are grown?

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

#1 vote is definitely dogs. Can't count how many times I've caught stray dogs on the property checking out my chicken coop. Neighbor's dog cleared my 5' fence and killed 6 laying hens in under 2 minutes. Unfortunately I couldn't get there fast enough for some of my girls.

 

[sweetsue]

I lost 4 at once to a coyote several years ago. Since then, I lost one at a time to a sneaky day time predator who took 16 one at a time. Had to completely pen up and secure my chickens.I had to set up a wildlife cam to see what it was. No surprise it was a sneaky bobcat. My brother gave us a 2yr old Australian Shepherd who is active and figured out the bobcat was coming around. He also noticed that when the cat was around the chickens would make alarm noises. Now when a chicken screams he's right over where it is checking things out. So far so good. Started free ranging the chickens again about 4 mos ago and no losses yet. Thanks to Kilo, our livestock guardian.

 

[zoa]

We lost our first flock a few years ago to a group of dogs from down the street.... we were at church and we came home to a poultry massacre. It was horrible, none were spared. There was blood, gore and feathers everywhere... and the worst part was they didn't eat any of them, they just raided the yard for the kill and then left once they were all dead.

Ever since I have worried the most about dogs- even though we are out on a farm out in the country where there is pretty much every predator around, dogs still scare me the most. It took us a few years to try chicken farming again, and so far there have not been any losses!