Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[plm6846]

We don't have any of those in Noeth Scottsdale Az.! Thank goodness..appears they are a bit tenacious!!

 

[Akrnaf2]

I don׳t know about you,but the worst predator that we in Israel have to deal with, is not the fox or the golden jackal or eagles, it is the mongoose! This sneaky predator can enter to a coop through a hole 10 cm(4 inches) in diameter and kill all the chickens in the coop! I saw once a coop with 18 chicken killed by a mongoose in one night!

 

[Rocky64]

Weasels are everywhere...

Bet this one was surprised.

The news people said that the woodpecker shook off the weasel and lived, unlikely as it looks like the weasel has a firm grip and is about to go for the throat.

 

[JJSS89]

Tough to judge what a firm grip is in a still photo of a very fast moving sequence.

 

[dekel18042]

The news people said that the woodpecker shook off the weasel and lived, unlikely as it looks like the weasel has a firm grip and is about to go for the throat.

Our newscast said in trying to shake off the weasel (I'm guessing he was really surprised and perhaps upset to get airborne.) the woodpecker headed right for the person taking the pictures. In turning the weasel was distracted and jumped or fell off. The woodpecker was able to fly away and the weasel ran away.

 

[Rocky64]

   Our newscast said in trying to shake off the weasel (I'm guessing he was really surprised and perhaps upset to get airborne.) the woodpecker headed right for the person taking the pictures.  In turning the weasel was distracted and jumped or fell off.  The woodpecker was able to fly away and the weasel ran away.

Can't trust everything the media tells ya.

 

[longleg]

Yesterday morning I let my hen and her seven chicks (two weeks old) out of their cage, into my backyard We live on a ranch and our nearest neighbor is 100 acres away, so there's not a lot of human activity going on around our home. I went into the house to answer the telephone (maybe for 5,6 minutes), and went back outside to only find 6 chicks. My husband said he thought he saw a magpie (the big black and white bird) feeding on something. But there were no feathers or anything left where he had seen the magpie. So I still had my doubts. But, I sat outside for another 30 minutes, and behind my back, I hear a chick giving the danger chirp. I turned around to see a magpie holding down the chick, and pecking at it. I jumped up and ran at it, hoping it wouldn't carry the chick off, which thankfully it did not. I knew magpies were carnivorous, because I see them eating dead things on the road. But I didn't know they'd attack a live chick, especially with a human so close. Thankfully the chick's doing fine. In the meantime, I've learned that besides the several types of hawks that are always on the lookout for a kill (The smaller ones can be quite brave too), blue jays and ravens will be as cunning.as the magpie and attempt to kill a chick. I should have known better, because they have babies to feed too. Butt it makes me sick. I guess it is another lesson learned on the ranch!

 

[JennBurger]

I haven't seen what took out my flock or quail but I am guessing it was coons. First it took out 3. Ripped them right through the wires. So we covered them at night. That night we lost 2 more. I guess they used team work and one held the outer cover while the other moved the inner cover and yanked them through. Then we baracaded the entire wire area except for the one strip for the water bottle to go in... Those birds must've lined up and poked their heads into that one hole to get ripped out cuz 2 more disappeared that night. I now lock the last 2 up in a small enclosed wooden section. I am just waiting for those furry ******** to figure that one out.

 

[dekel18042]

Yesterday morning I let my hen and her seven chicks (two weeks old) out of their cage, into my backyard We live on a ranch and our nearest neighbor is 100 acres away, so there's not a lot of human activity going on around our home. I went into the house to answer the telephone (maybe for 5,6 minutes), and went back outside to only find 6 chicks. My husband said he thought he saw a magpie (the big black and white bird) feeding on something. But there were no feathers or anything left where he had seen the magpie. So I still had my doubts. But, I sat outside for another 30 minutes, and behind my back, I hear a chick giving the danger chirp. I turned around to see a magpie holding down the chick, and pecking at it. I jumped up and ran at it, hoping it wouldn't carry the chick off, which thankfully it did not. I knew magpies were carnivorous, because I see them eating dead things on the road. But I didn't know they'd attack a live chick, especially with a human so close. Thankfully the chick's doing fine. In the meantime, I've learned that besides the several types of hawks that are always on the lookout for a kill (The smaller ones can be quite brave too), blue jays and ravens will be as cunning.as the magpie and attempt to kill a chick. I should have known better, because they have babies to feed too. Butt it makes me sick. I guess it is another lesson learned on the ranch!

Didn't the mother hen raise a ruckus?

 

[chicknmania]

That's why we keep our mother hens and their chicks in a pen, until they are five or six weeks old. It just helps the mother hen, especially if she's a new mother. But we still had that happen to one of our mother hens a couple of years ago. She had a bunch of babies (they were five or six weeks old) but she was having trouble keeping them together. Fox was running up and stealing them away from her when she took them outside and her back was turned. . She lost two that way. She acted like she didn't really even know what happened...