***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[ashtree]

@lonnyandrinda I know you were joking! I was just teasing-I swear lol I don't need any more though (after the Legbars haha!)-it occurred to me.....what if all the ones i caponize turn out to be slips??? My roosters follow me around the yard, one sits on my lap when I'm working on something, my big ole' Cornish from Charley on this list sits right at my elbow. These guys just fascinate me how puppy-like they are when there's no hens around.
@MrsDickey When their necks are stretched way out it's usually a snake that had to spit them out because they were too big to swallow. Sometimes their necks are slimey unless it's dried. Bunch up some landscape netting around the outside of their coop/run. The snakes get tangled and can't get out.

I was eating when I read this, and Im not usually easily grossed out (too many farty, slimy boys) but that snake description really ruined my meal.

-But at least I have an excuse to use that emoticon.

 

[ashtree]

snakes can't pluck a chicken.

A snake with tweezers could

 

[MrsDickey]

As of right now I'm leaning towards either a weasle or a snake. The necks were slimey wet but still featherless so anything with a wet mouth could have done that but I googled pictures of dead chickens- weird I know but it helped..

 

[subhanalah]

A snake may have happened upon it after the fact? I think you have a raccoon.. what kind of wire do you have? What size is it?

 

[Ksane]

snakes can't pluck a chicken.

No but their feathers are so plastered down and slimey after the snake spits them out that it looks plucked. Not sure if she found feathers? Or he looked plucked.

 

[subhanalah]

No but their feathers are so plastered down and slimey after the snake spits them out that it looks plucked. Not sure if she found feathers? Or he looked plucked.

why don't people document the evidence? It's a crime scene!

How can an investigator determine what it was without seeing the scene? It makes it incredibly difficult to base it off eye witness testimony.

 

[Sagetown]

I live in Skiatook too! Well, closer to Sperry but Skiatook address. Its a dirt floor coop. 2 walls and the top are completely covered by tin. The right side is partially wood and mainly wire. The south facing side or the from of the coop has an old heavy door that you have to lift on to open. The nest box is to the right of the door and has a completely covered wood back with 2 locks. The left of the door is more wire. No holes were dug. Do we have minks and weasles around here? I'm sure we do, we have just about everything I've just never seen one.

Rat Snake. No feathers. They wrap around the neck and choke their prey. They'll clean out a coop pretty quick. Check corners, dark covered areas. They can climb walls, believe it or not, so check all barn corner posts, where they can coil up on top of them.

 

[Kyzmette]

Quote:
So what I hear you saying is that we all need to go to her place with some chalk, tape, cameras, measuring tapes, qtips and important looking phials full of blue liquid, and a blush brush in white powder?

 

[Sagetown]

As of right now I'm leaning towards either a weasle or a snake. The necks were slimey wet but still featherless so anything with a wet mouth could have done that but I googled pictures of dead chickens- weird I know but it helped..

The chicken necks are slimy because the snake tries to swallow the chicken, then gives up.
I've dealt with them several times, and my assumption is that the snake is old, and is looking for an easy meal. One night after several chicken deaths, I found two of them on the roost with chickens in their mouths head first, and more dead chickens on the ground.

 

[subhanalah]

Quote:
So what I hear you saying is that we all need to go to her place with some chalk, tape, cameras, measuring tapes, qtips and important looking phials full of blue liquid, and a blush brush in white powder?

I think a simple cell phone camera would do I just notice when people have a predator loss, there's always the description from the person that found it and sometimes that makes it a bit hard to put together what it is, but I'm sure many folks here have dealt with enough that they take one look and say "see this seemingly insignificant detail? Yeah, that blows your whole case wide open". Just sayin.