Raccoon question

[50-45-1]

what a devastating thing to come home from vacation to!
if you plan to try again with this coop, i would clean it out completely, check all the walls, windows, doors and floor for any gaps or holes. i lost 5 chickens once because of a knot hole in a floor board. a weasel squeezed in and killed 5 and if my banty rooster had not woke me up by his crowing, it would have killed them all. use lots of hardware cloth, above and below ground.
i hear lots of failures because of auto doors. i dont trust them
my chicken neighbor and i have each others back when it comes to vacations. open and close manually, dawn and dusk.
i free range too, i may loose a bird during the day but at night i do not worry as my coop is secure. i have 3 guardian dogs that are out all day and they really keep the critters away, still i have lost 6 hens this summer. no feathers, no trail, nothing. pretty sure it is the bobcat we get pictures of on or cameras during the day. pretty sneaky and stealthy.
dont beat your self up to much about this. most of us have had these things happen at one time or another.
the secure coop i have now is the result of many different kinds of preditors showing me where my setup was lacking or insufficient.

 

[centrarchid]

what a devastating thing to come home from vacation to!
if you plan to try again with this coop, i would clean it out completely, check all the walls, windows, doors and floor for any gaps or holes. i lost 5 chickens once because of a knot hole in a floor board. a weasel squeezed in and killed 5 and if my banty rooster had not woke me up by his crowing, it would have killed them all. use lots of hardware cloth, above and below ground.
i hear lots of failures because of auto doors. i dont trust them
my chicken neighbor and i have each others back when it comes to vacations. open and close manually, dawn and dusk.
i free range too, i may loose a bird during the day but at night i do not worry as my coop is secure. i have 3 guardian dogs that are out all day and they really keep the critters away, still i have lost 6 hens this summer. no feathers, no trail, nothing. pretty sure it is the bobcat we get pictures of on or cameras during the day. pretty sneaky and stealthy.
dont beat your self up to much about this. most of us have had these things happen at one time or another.
the secure coop i have now is the result of many different kinds of preditors showing me where my setup was lacking or insufficient.

This is a two weeks problem more than structural.

 

[aart]

They were free range, have an automatic feeder outside the coop and several waterers plus I added an automatic door to the coop to let them out in morning and it shuts in the evening.....My aunt and uncle came by to collect eggs and check on things while we were gone..

Am guessing no one was checking on whether the auto door was working properly?

 

[EggWalrus]

Am a little suspicious about 2 legged critters as well but would have thought chickens would have been the last thing to steal.

It's more common than people know, especially with the current invasion from down south. Not all, but many of them are used to killing their own food and won't think twice about stealing chickens.

 

[Folly's place]

I too don't have an automatic door, because I worry about a predator getting in there before it closes, or a door malfunction. I open the coop/ run door at different times during the day, so there's not an obvious pattern for a predator to figure out. If I do see a hawk in the trees near the coop, the birds are in for that day at least.
It's more hands-on, but works for me.
I'm so sorry that you came home to this! Horrible losses do happen out there, and we've had them too. Please try to sort out what happened, and then your next flock will be safer.
Mary

 

[Chicken Heel]

I feel for the OP and coming home to what was found. I share the opinion that this sounds a lot like two legged predators may have been involved since the parties may have realized the land owners were not around. The comment on taking a vacation hits home because my poor wife gets frustrated with me not wanting to travel anymore. And this is why.

 

[Folly's place]

We have neighbors who watch out if we're gone, as we do for them. We also have friends with small farms and critters, so we help each other for farm sitting, and a family member who stays here too. It's about having a network, and it works.
Otherwise, we'd hire a pet sitter to stay here while we were gone.
Mary

 

[DrakeMom]

It's more common than people know, especially with the current invasion from down south. Not all, but many of them are used to killing their own food and won't think twice about stealing chickens.

These replies are so interesting to me. I didn't even think about 2 legged predators stealing chickens. We haven't heard of such a thing here in my town but hey! there's a first time for everything. We live in South Texas so it very well could happen. Our neighbors and us have had seen a someone seeking around our houses several different time so... The cops were called but as far as I know, no one was caught!

 

[EggWalrus]

These replies are so interesting to me. I didn't even think about 2 legged predators stealing chickens. We haven't heard of such a thing here in my town but hey! there's a first time for everything. We live in South Texas so it very well could happen. Our neighbors and us have had seen a someone seeking around our houses several different time so... The cops were called but as far as I know, no one was caught!

If you live in South Texas near an illegal crossing area, you can bet some of those boys from the Deeper South would snatched and eat a chicken in a heart beat if they got hungry on the way up here.

 

[DrakeMom]

If you live in South Texas near an illegal crossing area, you can bet some of those boys from the Deeper South would snatched and eat a chicken in a heart beat if they got hungry on the way up here.

We're about an hour south of Houston.