Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[teresa42299]

I lost a few to a fox. but the fox payed for it dearly.

 

[Rotorranch]

Up until recently, all my losses have been attributable to domestic dog packs. Recently, I have another predator that has nearly wiped out my small flock... either hawks or Black Buzzards. Since the first of the year, I've lost 6 of 8 chickens. No remains have been found, or tracks, just a few feathers at the attack site.

Rotor

 

[Shellz]

This little kitty cat liked chickens

Not anymore!

 

[Shellz]

I was losing birds to foxes. Last year it came & got 4 birds. Left one dead for me to find. My favorite one! Grrr! I got smart, trained my 2 dogs to stay off the road. Now they're out ranging with the chickens when I can't be out there. At 0 losses so far this year. Knock on wood! Had only one hawk attack last year & all it got was a beak full of feathers. My dogs bark at & chase everything off.

 

[Triple Willow]

I was losing birds to foxes. Last year it came & got 4 birds. Left one dead for me to find. My favorite one! Grrr! I got smart, trained my 2 dogs to stay off the road. Now they're out ranging with the chickens when I can't be out there. At 0 losses so far this year. Knock on wood! Had only one hawk attack last year & all it got was a beak full of feathers. My dogs bark at & chase everything off.

How did you train your dogs?

 

[CedarAcres]

Most of our losses have been from a weasel. Lost an entire flock in one night. He came back for another flock the next night. Except we got him! He's stuffed in our house now!

 

[Shellz]

How did you train your dogs?

I would take one on the leash up to our open gates at the end of the driveway. I would say stay & when he defied me & moved ahead, I would yank back on the leash & say no! When he stopped moving ahead, I praised him a lot! I would repeat this exercise several times a day for short periods of time. 5-10 mins. Repeat with other dog. Periodically, it helps to do surprise training sessions too. Keep them on their toes.

 

[Shellz]

Most of our losses have been from a weasel. Lost an entire flock in one night. He came back for another flock the next night. Except we got him! He's stuffed in our house now!

Sorry for your losses. Thank goodness you got that weasel before any more damage was done. Hope I never have that displeasure.

 

[Nitehawke]

I haven't lost any but, thanks to a plethora of feral cats in the neighborhood, I built my cage with predators in mind. My girls aren't allowed to free-range because there's too much of a chance they'd hop the fence, land in a neighbor's yard and get killed by a cat or dog before I could get to them.

I'm using an old dog kennel for their enclosure. It's actually attached to the wall of my back porch (really convenient because I built the nesting boxes INSIDE the porch and just put one open end into their coop. I can step out on the porch, open the cupboard doors on the nesting boxes and retrieve the eggs without having to deal with inclement weather!). The dogs had pulled up some of the chain link so I went around the inside of the kennel with chicken wire and topped it with the plastic chicken fence. The floor is dirt-covered concrete.

I suppose a truly persistent predator could chew through the top pretty easily but it would be one very intelligent predator to think of climbing up to the top to begin with, he'd have to drop into the pen from above and would then likely be trapped. And he'd have to do all this very quietly, even at night, since my bedroom is only about 8" from the pen.

Along with the cats, we've had a skunk around almost every night all Summer long (my idiot dog got "skunked" twice in August - I'm so glad I keep a bottle of Nature's Miracle on hand!!), one of the neighbor's dogs keeps getting loose and I came home in the middle of the night one night to see a HUGE Opossum in the driveway (I've NEVER seen an opossum here in the North East and I'll bet this one would weigh in at 8 lbs MINIMUM. It was standing beside my daughter's Subaru Outback and was half the height of her tire!). I've got to think it was drawn here by the chickens. I inspect the cage on a regular basis and haven't seen anywhere that shows signs of anything trying to get in.

My own dog, a Pit/Springer Spaniel mix, is terribly curious about the chickens. Once they'd gotten a bit of size to them, I let Charm follow me into the pen one day. She sniffed everything in sight and attempted to sniff one of the girls who immediately flapped her wings and tried to rake Charm's face with her claws, lol. Charm couldn't figure out what the chicken's problem was, lol, all she wanted was a sniff! (Charm's plenty fast enough that if she'd wanted a taste of the chicken, the chicken wouldn't have had a chance. She WILL chase cats or other dogs off our property that don't belong here - which is how she got skunked - but will not chase anything that belongs here. If she were to get loose and someone else nearby had chickens, I make no claim that she wouldn't eat THOSE chickens, only that she shows no inclination to eat MINE.)

Overall, I've been very lucky with my first ever chicken flock! As the weather cools, though, I may have to reinforce some parts of it against rats as they start looking for warm places to be and things to eat.

 

[ilovethechickns]

I just logged on to byc to vent and grieve a little. And came on this poll. For me, the worst predators are dogs - MY OWN DOGS - because I've only ever lost chickens to disease and old age, or to our youngest puppy, a HUGE girl who battering-rammed her way into the pen when I was going in to feed. Broke the oldest chickens neck and she died pretty quick. On a lighter note, the puppy did go for the rooster first, but... well, we all know who wins those battles. Ha. Neil the Rooster WILL NOT BE HARASSED BY A MERE DOG! lol ... not even a scratch on the old boy! haha. Thanks for letting me share.