Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[Zan]

I vote bear. I had one get in my coop this week. He killed 27 birds in 2 days. 20 of which were my laying hens.

 

[Ferd Berfel]

Raccoons and possums until I got the coop fixed, then a weasel or mink got in and slaughtered nearly everything including a tough rooster. 3 chickens that lived refused to go back inside, a fox eventually got them. Fixed the weasel/mink hole, started over. No problems in over 2 years. Had a migrating hawk get 2 last fall. Kept the flock shut up for 3 days and it moved on. Good since then. I have dispatched over 100 coons and possums in 4 years. I caught them all next to the coop. We have a dog who is in the yard a lot now. He keeps the varmints away pretty well.

 

[Zmany2k]

Definitely raccoons in my experience. Skunks will go after juveniles birds and definitely go after eggs.
Raccoons are harder to keep out since they have thumbs and are fairly intelligent. They also kill for fun. Lost five birds to one coon when I first started out.
Coyotes are a threat, but easy to keep out. My wire currently has a dent in the shape of a coyote face.
I keep a live trap baited with dog food next to my coop. I check it every morning and generally shoot whatever I catch in there.

 

[kelseyk]

It is a toss up between fox and raccoon here. I chose fox as the worst because they are harder to catch - we have lost 2-3 to a fox. I am dealing with raccoons bad right now (have caught 5 in about 2 weeks) - we have lost 2-3 to raccoons. The opossums seem to be sticking to eggs so far and come out during the day, so I can usually catch them red handed.

 

[Tytsofie]

I live on a farm and have had every predator on the list, and if you’re new- motion activated lights on the coop work wonders. Bury hardware cloth around the coop/run perimeter, secure everything with locks, and fill in all gaps. Chicken wire is a no. Raccoons are the worst, they’re crafty little guys and will work all night long with those little fingers to break into your coop. They don’t mess with my coop as much anymore because they’ve stopped trying over the years, but recently one fought my barn cat and I did have to remove it (along with three babies) from the property.

 

[CHICKENLOVER747-8i]

we rarely get dogs and they stay from the house, so snakes are the worst for me. but for the fully grown chooks, disease is the main killer, and that is still rare

 

[AJ Farms 605]

Over the last 7 years we have been lucky with only one predator attack by a raccoon, until last week. Our neighbors dog traveled over a mile to our house and killed 30 of our chickens. It was terrible.

 

[CHICKENLOVER747-8i]

Feels bad

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

This is probably heavily influenced by area... for me most recently it has been hawks. In the past dogs, raccoons, skunks and opossum were all problematic. We had dogs scale the fence to get at birds even. Other listed critters got the birds various ways. As a result when we started keeping again the whole coop area was placed on brick (prevent burrowing) with smaller than chicken wire used in coops (to prevent decapitated birds) surrounded by a steel fence in a yard with another fence around that (keep dogs out)... no digging under and 3 layers of fencing of different types to get through... worked great till the hawks... so now added an additional fencing onto iron fencing to prevent chickens exiting to main garden during day to free range, and mesh covering over top of coop area to prevent day time chicken lunch take out by hawks.... other critters in my area include coyotes, mountain lion (very rare), snakes, cats, bobcat, rats, weasels, owls (though none of these have not been an issue) and yes people... I suspect one bird was stolen. Now locking gates.

 

[Wormhunter]

I was curious as to which predator the most chickens have been lost to.

Here in the uk it’s FOX