Official BYC Poll: The Worst Predator

[bantamofopera]

Our only predator losses have been to a hawk. I wouldn't believe a red-tailed hawk would eat a chicken, but I caught him red-handed (or beaked) on the third bird lost in a week last summer. They can't carry them away, so they eat them on site. The solution that has worked for us is to string fishing line over our poultry netting. A pain in the butt when I move the fence (every week) but it has prevented further losses. Since the new flock is too small to stay in the netting still, we have been baby-sitting them out-doors and my husband shoots a BB gun in the direction of wheeling hawks, which sends them in the other direction. We also have a pair of ravens nesting nearby, but since we've been baby-sitting they have not been back by (at least not close). Hopefully they won't be a problem once their young are grown and our birds are bigger.

 

[lsg1007]

Bantam of opera...I wouldn't put too much faith in size deterring a red tailed hawk. I lost 2 of my grown hens (6 yr old and 1 yr old) to a red tailed hawk pair in the fall of last year. They didn't eat them and I didn't see them in the act, but both hens had fatal injuries between their wings on their backs and my one yr old had been acting skittish as though there was risk from the sky in the week before she was killed. I have now hoped netting over my chicken yard would keep them safe. But as the hawks have been ruthless this spring, I also kept my hens in pens inside their yard. Good luck...

 

[Gypsi]

I've never had to deal with a raccoon, but it seems to me that fairly large heavy fencing would keep it out. The weasel on the other hand (and probably the mink) will fit through an opening the size of a golf ball. Lacking the strength to pry things open they seem to push through with their noses. I am told that unless I successfully trap or kill mine it will keep coming back til I run out of chickens. I'm down to 5. Let my dogs stay in one night. I suspect the 3 am dog potty run is the only reason I still have 5. He (or she) was on its first hen, dragged it under the coop, but left the rest alone.

so for now I am cooping my remaining 2 adult birds and 3 pullets in my secure chick pen in the green house, they now fit. I put them in at 10:30 at night and put my biggest and wildest housecat in the chicken coop. I can see 2 spots where it could have pushed through after I went over that pen looking for openings. I'm not fixing them. I've watched this cat butcher a rabbit neatly on my front porch, and he's outrun the coyotes time and again. Weasels are small.

Gypsi

 

[Autumn D]

hawks, they start circleing as soon as we let the birds out to free range, one of these days i am going to lose my voice trying to scare them away.

a fox got my favorite chicken, maddie also my show bird. RIP Coons killed ALL of my friends birds, chewed a hole right through the coop.

 

[outdoorsii]

See, we have more racoons/opossums around my area than we do coyotes & foxes, but I KNOW it was foxes that grabbed 1 of our dominques & 1 of our leghorns; we had killed all the coyotes around so the foxes started coming around then, & the juvenile foxes were stupid/braver so they were coming around 10am in the mornings & about 4pm in the afternoon. My dad actually leaves food out for the opossums & racoons in our backyard straight back...our chicken coop/pen is around the side of our house & we only have about a 3-4 ft fence around their pen & leave their coop door open at night so they can roam in the morning some; the coons never have gone in their coop yet I don't think, which is really weird. Although one day we did notice we had an egg missing...b/c it was there earlier in the day & later it wasnt....we're about to put a game cam facing the nesting area!

 

[EyeHeartBantams]

Most of our predator losses have been to minks and weasels, **** little blood-suckers that they are. Though I'm at risk of losing them to my father's dog if she doesn't freakin' learn that chickens are friends, not food.

 

[SarahMcD]

I heard a fox the night before last - only two days after I lost my LGD. My chickens and turkeys are in a coop and my goats are in night pens but still worried.

Then last night around 3 am I heard one of the cats yowling outside and the other cat, who was indoors, growling like crazy. I got up to check and a strange, long narrow shape darted down to our gully. I couldn't tell exactly what it was but it was growling like crazy. Before I saw it I thought it must be a racoon but it wasn't.

It looked more like a ferret or weasel. I don't think they have them in Tx!

Any ideas?

I'm thinking I'd better get another dog pronto!

 

[SarahMcD]

Oh, and one more thing...on the ground by the feed barn I found a bunch of dry, broken eggs. Not a bit of membrane or yolk - completely clean. Do many animals do this or is it indicative of a certain one?

Thanks.

 

[DarthSlurpee]

For us, the answer to the poll so far has been hawk. We've lost a few chickens to hawk attack (and managed to save two during attacks

). We believe we lost our only other bird to depradation by fox. But the most worrisome to us has been the raccoon. It seems like we're in a never-ending battle against those pests.

While doing some research on this topic today, I came across some very interesting information for those of us in Michigan:

Quote:
Source

Just yesterday my wife and daughter were alerted to two dogs walking around our coop by our new border collie pups. I hope we aren't visited by them again.

And that's my first BYC post.

 

[outdoorsii]

It's so weird, we live right on the inside of the city limits of Little Rock, & we actually saw a family of coons last night, a big mama, & her 4 babies eating our deer corn outside in the backyard & then the other night there were 2 big ones out there, last night we had a juvenile oppossum. We haven't seem to have ANY trouble w/the coons so far, which is odd considering what I'm hearing from you all ... but if we do ... I'm definately going to watch for ANY suspicious activity of those new coons we're getting around here though, as far as I'm concerned foxes are our biggest problem & fear, my chickens wanna free range so bad but I'm so afraid I'll loose whitey if I don't watch their every move