This little *bleep*er
has killed 14 of my birds so far. Lost 12 in June. They had been free ranging in a large fenced area and it attacked during the day and killed all but two who flew over the fence and escaped.
It came back a week later into a secure run (not secure enough I guess) and killed another.
We spent the summer building a new Fort Knox run with hardware cloth everywhere. I boarded up their coop as best as I could - and it came and killed another one in October. More boarding up/securing, set two traps (one have a hart, one I made out of wood), nada.
In July we started a new flock that has just started laying. On Saturday it got in again and killed a pullet. As I was investigating how it got in it came right in the front door of the shed that is attached to the coop & tried to get past me to do more murdering. Broad daylight, not afraid of me at all! I took this picture of it in my shed while I was trying to trap it.
I brought the birds all into the garage (in pens/cages) so I could try to trap it. Nada.
We ended up adding rat poison to the body of the victim and putting it in plain sight in the shed. That night it ate more of the victim, but obviously didn’t die from poison because it came in the garage today and tried to get into one of the pens. I heard the panic squawking and got there in time to prevent any more loss. It escaped the way it got in, which is surely some small crack I can’t see.
So now my 11 surviving chickens are all in my kitchen and it’s -10 degrees F outside with 2 feet of new snow and I am at my wit’s end.
What else can I possibly do? Nothing I do can keep it out. I need to kill it. What has worked for you?
If I wouldn’t die of hypothermia I’m ready to sit out there all night with a shotgun.
has killed 14 of my birds so far. Lost 12 in June. They had been free ranging in a large fenced area and it attacked during the day and killed all but two who flew over the fence and escaped.
It came back a week later into a secure run (not secure enough I guess) and killed another.
We spent the summer building a new Fort Knox run with hardware cloth everywhere. I boarded up their coop as best as I could - and it came and killed another one in October. More boarding up/securing, set two traps (one have a hart, one I made out of wood), nada.
In July we started a new flock that has just started laying. On Saturday it got in again and killed a pullet. As I was investigating how it got in it came right in the front door of the shed that is attached to the coop & tried to get past me to do more murdering. Broad daylight, not afraid of me at all! I took this picture of it in my shed while I was trying to trap it.
I brought the birds all into the garage (in pens/cages) so I could try to trap it. Nada.
We ended up adding rat poison to the body of the victim and putting it in plain sight in the shed. That night it ate more of the victim, but obviously didn’t die from poison because it came in the garage today and tried to get into one of the pens. I heard the panic squawking and got there in time to prevent any more loss. It escaped the way it got in, which is surely some small crack I can’t see.
So now my 11 surviving chickens are all in my kitchen and it’s -10 degrees F outside with 2 feet of new snow and I am at my wit’s end.
What else can I possibly do? Nothing I do can keep it out. I need to kill it. What has worked for you?
If I wouldn’t die of hypothermia I’m ready to sit out there all night with a shotgun.
