Something entered my coop last night!!!

[ksbmom]

Sorry to hear about your lost birds. You might check into the laws in your state - where I live (Florida), it is illegal to trap a wild animal and release it elsewhere, due to the fact that raccoons and such tend to have rabies and they don't want rabies spreading to an area that might not be affected. I have lost 4 birds to raccoons, and it was just like yours - heads missing and everything. Awful! We trapped about 4 raccoons and haven't had a problem for about a year now.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Hey chicken gal 505 how bout cookin up some possum and letting us know how it tastes.. I see bumper stickers say, eat mo' possum. Must be good

 

[farmer_lew]

Racoons are notorious for their ability to get into places, even containers with a screw-on lid. Make sure to double check your remaining coop for any tears in the poultry netting. Make sure there are no holes in it. You are going to have to rebuild the others. If you build them on the ground, dig a trench all the way round and run your poultry netting/hardware cloth down into the trench at least a foot (two would be better), then fill the trench. That should stop any burrowing predators. I would use hardware cloth for the top. If you build another raised one, use hardware cloth for the bottom. You will need to enclose the run, too. Now that the predators have tasted your chickens, they will be back, again and again, until they can't get anymore food there.

Traps are a good idea, too. Trap the predators, as many as possible, and relocate them far, far away.

Hope your wounded silkie continues to heal. Sounds like you are doing all the right stuff. Sorry this happened in the first place.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

 

[vickircafe]

Just wanted to let everyone know I had a friend kill the possum for me. I was way to afraid to do anymore than carry the trap with the possum in it. I now have the trap reset to see if there are anymore predators out there.