whiteybird
Songster
Apparently the privacy lattice enclosing the bottom of our coop isn't strong enough to deter raccoons...
i went to let the birds out this morning, and noticed a bunch of small feathers littered around the bars of the coop (3.5' off the ground) that they walk on. A couple were bloody but my immediate reaction was that they were kept cooped up (pun intended) for too long and got aggressive with each other because they wanted out.
Then my focus slipped through the bars to the ground under the coop...and the carcass of Eagle, my only EE mix. headless. Upon closer inspection I noticed a decent hole in the privacy lattice beside her body. While on the phone with the bf telling him about Eagle, I walked around to the other side of the coop and found the similarly hollowed out carcass of our RIR mix, Butters. Her head was held on by only her neck bones. She was lying on the ground on the opposite side of the coop from where the entry hole was.
I'm ******. We lost our third and last Pekin duck on Friday night, I'm guessing because of these same raccoons. That, however, was partially my fault, because I got too comfortable with the environment and thought that only partially locking up the duck's coop would be sufficient protection. But if that was a raccoon too, they got Sydney, a 4 month old Pekin, out of a 4" wide opening and, after helping her spew feathers all over the run, hauled her off.
Clearly they got a taste of water fowl and wanted more. and settled for chicken.
not sure why I'm posting this really, since I'm pretty sure I know what did it, and I know of ways to fix it, but I guess it's more of a lesson to other newbies out there who don't think raccoons can do something like this.
We're getting the live trap out tonight and ill throw in some fish bodies from fishing yesterday and see what I get. but I may jump the gun and try to shoot anything before it even gets close to the trap.
i went to let the birds out this morning, and noticed a bunch of small feathers littered around the bars of the coop (3.5' off the ground) that they walk on. A couple were bloody but my immediate reaction was that they were kept cooped up (pun intended) for too long and got aggressive with each other because they wanted out.
Then my focus slipped through the bars to the ground under the coop...and the carcass of Eagle, my only EE mix. headless. Upon closer inspection I noticed a decent hole in the privacy lattice beside her body. While on the phone with the bf telling him about Eagle, I walked around to the other side of the coop and found the similarly hollowed out carcass of our RIR mix, Butters. Her head was held on by only her neck bones. She was lying on the ground on the opposite side of the coop from where the entry hole was.
I'm ******. We lost our third and last Pekin duck on Friday night, I'm guessing because of these same raccoons. That, however, was partially my fault, because I got too comfortable with the environment and thought that only partially locking up the duck's coop would be sufficient protection. But if that was a raccoon too, they got Sydney, a 4 month old Pekin, out of a 4" wide opening and, after helping her spew feathers all over the run, hauled her off.
Clearly they got a taste of water fowl and wanted more. and settled for chicken.
not sure why I'm posting this really, since I'm pretty sure I know what did it, and I know of ways to fix it, but I guess it's more of a lesson to other newbies out there who don't think raccoons can do something like this.
We're getting the live trap out tonight and ill throw in some fish bodies from fishing yesterday and see what I get. but I may jump the gun and try to shoot anything before it even gets close to the trap.
