Recent Attack on Tom & Hen

[CHICKENLADY123]

We have a bronze breasted tom & hen and a bourbon red hen. All about 7 months old. This morning my daughter told me that there were feathers all over the turkey barn. When I went out, I notice that my bourbon hen was missing most of her tail feathers and my tom was laying on his side and missing most of his tail feathers and larger wing feathers. I checked them out thoroughly. No wounds or bite marks. Just red and missing feathers. The tom cannot walk or at least put weight on his right foot. I checked it for wounds, but found nothing. My husband thinks something reached into their pen and attacked them. No evidence that something got into it. Feathers are mostly outside of the pen (hog wire with roof). Could and what would do something like that ? and do you think he is just in shock ? No visible wounds. (history on these turkeys.....were purchased for Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner as chicks....needless to say they are still with us. We kinda bonded. I know, I know.....they were not made for long lives, but I will deal with that after the New Year !! ) We live in No. Calif. Have cats, possums and raccoons that wander around at night. Never had an attack before. What do you think ? Thanks.

 

[ccrawf]

My guess would be raccoons. I’ve had them get into my pen when I had poults outside in an old rabbit hutch. They were able to bite the toes off some of them from underneath. One had a wing missing completely and one they some how got through the cage. Never figured out how. And speaking from experience, you have to pull pretty hard to get some of those feathers out, especially on the wings. Check for blood feathers, ones that are still growing. The bird can bleed to death from them. You’d have to pull the rest of the feather out.

As for not being able to walk, put him some place he has feed and water, but you might end up putting him down anyway. Another thought is that the tom tried to protect the others and that is how he got some of the injuries.

 

[CHICKENLADY123]

No bleeding and we looked pretty thoroughly. We have seen some pretty big raccoons in our neighborhood, but in six years they have never bothered our livestock

 

[ivan3]

I'd guess raccoons as well. You might want to recheck the tom as they can be gashed very deeply and not bleed much at all (wound edges pushed together because of the mass of the turk's muscles).

We have to keep three havaharts set 24/7 otherwise we'd have no turks (are locked in shed at night and have 6ft. 1"x2" welded wire fencing but a healthy coon on a daytime schedule mortally wounded our Royal hen).

 

[CHICKENLADY123]

what is a havaheart ?

 

[ivan3]

Havaharts are live traps. We keep them set and freshly baited at all times (pred. heavy area).

http://www.havahart.com/

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

another idea is to tie aluminum pie plates to the wire loosely, so that when the wire moves vigoursly they will make noice and scare off an intruder..the traps are an excellent choice also..I have some and you would be suprprised how many you will catch...just once you get something take it far far away from your house..but then once back home set it again each night.