ihatedarkroast
Songster
What type of predator do you think got our chicken?
Two days ago, something got our small polish hen, Minette. It happened after I let the chickens out in the morning probably between 6:30 am and 8:30 am. My husband found her around 10 or 11 am already stiff with rigor mortis. He said there were feathers near the garden fence line where she was possibly cornered. Then there was a trail of feathers leading about 20 feet to under some trees. There was a big pile of feathers under the trees near the body. He said the head was chewed up and the neck was eaten down to the bone. He said it was quite grisly, so he tossed the body in the woods before me or the kids saw it. The scene of the crime was pretty close to the chicken coop. Whatever it was had to cross about 50 feet of open ground from the woods to the garden too.
Minette was not the brightest or the fastest. We kept the feathers trimmed around her eyes so that she could see, but she was very slow and tame, so the kids liked to hold her and pet her. But she really was an easy target. I never heard the chickens kicking up the alarm. But I remember noticing that half the flock decided to crowd onto our front porch right before breakfast. So I sent one of the kids out to chase them off. I'm guessing that's when the action was happening and the flock was rushing the house to find shelter.
The hubs put a have-a-heart trap out and caught a cat-sized very active possum in it last night near the scene of the crime. I'm not sure he was the culprit though. We also have bobcat, coyote, bear, hawks, owls, and tons of raccoons. There is also a creek nearby.
Also lately, the hubs tossed a rotten chicken (from the grocery store) I had bought on sale across the driveway into the neighboring field because he didn't feel like taking the trash to the dump. I learned he has also been tossing rabbit carcasses into the woods around the house. (The bunnies have been decimating the garden. The repellent has not worked this year. So we're thinning them out.) So I'm kind of concerned he is drawing predators to our home and have asked him to take carcasses to the dump or dispose of them much further away. He's a little peeved at me now, but he'll get over it.
Two days ago, something got our small polish hen, Minette. It happened after I let the chickens out in the morning probably between 6:30 am and 8:30 am. My husband found her around 10 or 11 am already stiff with rigor mortis. He said there were feathers near the garden fence line where she was possibly cornered. Then there was a trail of feathers leading about 20 feet to under some trees. There was a big pile of feathers under the trees near the body. He said the head was chewed up and the neck was eaten down to the bone. He said it was quite grisly, so he tossed the body in the woods before me or the kids saw it. The scene of the crime was pretty close to the chicken coop. Whatever it was had to cross about 50 feet of open ground from the woods to the garden too.
Minette was not the brightest or the fastest. We kept the feathers trimmed around her eyes so that she could see, but she was very slow and tame, so the kids liked to hold her and pet her. But she really was an easy target. I never heard the chickens kicking up the alarm. But I remember noticing that half the flock decided to crowd onto our front porch right before breakfast. So I sent one of the kids out to chase them off. I'm guessing that's when the action was happening and the flock was rushing the house to find shelter.
The hubs put a have-a-heart trap out and caught a cat-sized very active possum in it last night near the scene of the crime. I'm not sure he was the culprit though. We also have bobcat, coyote, bear, hawks, owls, and tons of raccoons. There is also a creek nearby.
Also lately, the hubs tossed a rotten chicken (from the grocery store) I had bought on sale across the driveway into the neighboring field because he didn't feel like taking the trash to the dump. I learned he has also been tossing rabbit carcasses into the woods around the house. (The bunnies have been decimating the garden. The repellent has not worked this year. So we're thinning them out.) So I'm kind of concerned he is drawing predators to our home and have asked him to take carcasses to the dump or dispose of them much further away. He's a little peeved at me now, but he'll get over it.
