Sitting with a cup of coffee. (coffee lovers)

[room onthebroom]

Just.........


Just........

Horrid bad.

So, my veggie yard coop, that I have been using for years with ZERO losses... Nice fence, and I have a net over the top... It is also solid weeds, so great cover.....

Turns out "something" (I think a great horned owl), took 26 grow-outs out of that pen before I noticed.... Left me 6, only 2 girls. There goes the money I was gonna make this year to help pay for feed........

Then, Friday night, that same owl (I am guessing) wedged itself through the tiny open vents on my pond coop, and ate our sweet broody mama and her 4 chicks one month old (two females of a wonderful color), and then this morning I go to the bantam coop and find 3 (the least loved, and least valued, and least valuable) chickens standing up on the high beam that is in the run.

I look around, and all of the beloved (a few 4 year old pets) and highly valuable (my breeding stock from pips and peeps -wheaten Ameraucanas) and beloved chickens and rooster.. All on the ground, here and there, dead.

A stoat (tiny weasel) got in through the 1" by 2" wire fence, bit their throats, drank their blood...then killed the next..... Except for on girl that it ate a bit of, and tried to drag through the fence.....

My three most lovely bantam wheaten girls, two had perfect coloring.

My bantam wheaten rooster....

The tiny little d'anver girl that my kids adored....

Their 4 year old pets that I had promissed that we would keep forever......

All gone.


AND I had just gotten rid of ALL of the grow-outs yesterday.....

I texted the guy that took the bantam wheaten ameraucana cockerels..... An hour after he finished butchering the last one....

Yep... No One else has them in the state of Alaska.

Now I am wondering how I am going to catch the stoat.... Wondering how I can keep the great horned owl from my stock......

I have a mass of baby muscovy ducklings right now...... Today...... Maybe not tomorrow.

That bantam coop was a great coop...it withstood a black bear last year.... Those stoats though, can get in a gap that is one inch square....
Edited by Alaskan - Today at 3:22 pm

Oh my God! What a complete tragedy! Just .... Unimaginable! I am SO SORRY!!!

 

[Alaskan]

Thanks... And completely what keeps running through my mind. "unimaginable!!" I have had chickens most of my life, for 8 years up here in Alaska.... And how so many could have been lost... All in the same week.... A great horned owl AND the stoat... In the same week.....

All I am missing is a dog getting into my main coop...

 

[sourland]

Don't tempt fate. GHO are like flying wolverines.

 

[chickisoup]

OH NO ALASKAN!!!
I can't imagine that horror!!!
All the valuable breeding stock, the momma and chicks, the growouts, the PETS!
What a rotten hit to the income, and the heart
No words to suffice, please just accept I very sincere so very very sorry.

Is there no hope to restore the lost bloodlines?

Wish there were some help I could offer but you have no need of anything from my
poor quality pets.

(If I make it thru this trial I dream of becoming a breeder of quality heritage stock,
if I can ever narrow it down, I want to breed them all!)

 

[duluthralphie]

Alaskan I feel your pain!


I am trying to think of some witty comforting words, I got nothing! Sorry.

 

[Alaskan]

Well.... My mood is up!!!!

We caught the sucker!!!! e

A great horned owl I can keep out... but the stoat was giving me nightmares....

I was so sure that my bad luck would continue and the predators would laugh at my efforts.

But.....

e


And, it turns out it was NOT a stoat, it was the next size up, a weasel. Microscopically easier to keep out of a coop.....maybe....actually probably not...since they are stronger.....

Anyway.... I am still going to shell out and hardware cloth at least the bantam coop.... I need to decide if I am willing to do that for the chicken shed and coop....

At any rate... Wheew.... I was up off and on all night checking the ducklings.... We had surrounded the outside edges of the duck pen with traps...


But we caught it at the scene of the crime.... I put one trap right where it had tried to pull my sweet 4 year old pet through the 1x2 inch fence......


And yeah Sourland... About great horned owls... I never forget that winter a great horned owl got in. The second night it pried itself in and got in again... The third night we had the door wedged shut with a 6 by 6 post... I should have taken photos of the Freddie Cruger style claw marks all around the door the next morning.

 

[Alaskan]

By the way... I had used up all extra eggs Saturday.... But I still had three.... (One was in the fridge, and two were in the coop)

I have put them in the incubator... Give me a week, and we shall see.....

 

[perchie.girl]

Well.... My mood is up!!!!

We caught the sucker!!!!

A great horned owl I can keep out... but the stoat was giving me nightmares....

I was so sure that my bad luck would continue and the predators would laugh at my efforts.

But.....

And, it turns out it was NOT a stoat, it was the next size up, a weasel. Microscopically easier to keep out of a coop.....maybe....actually probably not...since they are stronger.....

Anyway.... I am still going to shell out and hardware cloth at least the bantam coop.... I need to decide if I am willing to do that for the chicken shed and coop....

At any rate... Wheew.... I was up off and on all night checking the ducklings.... We had surrounded the outside edges of the duck pen with traps...


But we caught it at the scene of the crime.... I put one trap right where it had tried to pull my sweet 4 year old pet through the 1x2 inch fence......


And yeah Sourland... About great horned owls... I never forget that winter a great horned owl got in. The second night it pried itself in and got in again... The third night we had the door wedged shut with a 6 by 6 post... I should have taken photos of the Freddie Cruger style claw marks all around the door the next morning.

Yay..... on the demize of the weasel..... Hardware cloth vs heartache... No brainer.

deb

 

[chickisoup]

WAY TO GO ALASKAN!!!!

 

[chickisoup]