So tired of predators...

[old biddy]

Nocturnal predators that hunt during the day often times carry rabies. Be careful cleaning up the debris by wearing rubber gloves.

OOOhhh - too late. I already cleaned it up. But I did wash my hands really well afterwards.

 

[old biddy]

We have problems with raccoons and skunks.
Coyote urine spray bought online, seems to make them think twice

We also have coyote problems.

 

[old biddy]

So I just finished running 2 ft. high hardware cloth around the perimeter of our chain link run. The rest of the chain link will be covered with small 1/4" bird netting on all sides in addition to the hardware cloth. The top of the pen has 2" large bird netting and I am also going to stretch the 1/4" bird netting over on top of that. Not sure if this is overkill or still not enough, but that's what I've done. My vision is to have full fencing around my 20+ acres plus the two Great Pyrenees doggies (KS KingBee)...but not sure when I can pull that off. This is just a never ending story. My daughter half jokingly said she appreciates me dedicating my life to the family having eggs every morning (chickens) and of course to our beautiful peafowl. We laughed at that...but actually it is true. We recently finished building a beautiful house on the hill after living in two small cabins for the ten years it took us to build the house...and yet I spend all my time outdoors down at the cabins with our farm cats, chickens, peafowl - and potting cuttings from my azaleas, camellias, gardenias, bamboo and dogwoods. It is a beautiful life with the only stressors being these dang predators. I set the live trap tonight to see if we can catch the varmint - and I have the game camera on.

 

[old biddy]

We also have coyote problems.

I forgot to mention that I did put out wolf urine but it hasn't seemed to deter ANYTHING!

 

[KsKingBee]

We love our little piece of paradise out in the middle of nowhere too. You are going to love the dogs but try to not make them pets, try to think of them as livestock but I warn you they will make you love on them.

 

[old biddy]

So far the only thing we picked up on the game camera was a very large possum. The only thing we caught in the trap was one of our farm cats the first night and a small possum the second night.

I am wondering if a possum (the really large one we saw on our game camera) could have been what reached through the chain link fence and grabbed the rooster during the late afternoon, and been strong enough to pull it through the chain link fence, rather than a large raccoon. Any thoughts anyone?

 

[old biddy]

We love our little piece of paradise out in the middle of nowhere too. You are going to love the dogs but try to not make them pets, try to think of them as livestock but I warn you they will make you love on them.

Are your dogs inside a fenced area or do they just free range on your property?

 

[Mareve]

You’d be surprised at how vicious and smart raccoons are. This has been a terrible summer for my chickens. I’ve had chickens for 15 years and never lost more than 2, maybe 3 a year. Often to dogs. This summer My flock was reduced from30 down to 9.
We had the raccoon on camera with chickens in their arms climbing thru the bottom of the coop. We sealed our coop up from the roof down. The raccoons were getting under the coop. Digging, clawing, reaching under the fencing. They are around daytime and night time.

 

[Mareve]

Possums eat eggs, but not chickens.

 

[KsKingBee]

Are your dogs inside a fenced area or do they just free range on your property?

They are free-range so they can patrol past our property when needed. Although if you do fence your entire 20 acres they would be fine confined to that.