Something is killing my chicks... Thoughts... Advice...

[texascowboy1979]

I have have bought chicks 3 times in the past week... and something keeps eatting them... At 1st I thought it was the dog... so I took care of that problem... now it keeps happening..

Description of Site:

There is a whole under the fence the size of a tennise ball... I dont know if its a rat or a snake that killed them all... I need to fix it before my expensive birds start to hatch...

I bought lots of rat poision... dont know if that will fix the problem...

I am going to lift the pen up and put plywood on the bottom to keep anything from getting in from the bottom.

The top of the pen is regular chicken wire...

I have a small rabbit hutch that I am thinking of converting into a chick coop... but dont know how long that will last because of the number of chicks I expect to hatch...

Running out of options...

Ill probly build a heavy duty chick coop with holes the size of 1/4th by 1/4th...

One question thow... why have my peacocks not been killed??? Why did the problem just start. I never had this problem in the past... my turkey, goose, and chicken chicks all did fine... The killings just started out of no where..

P.S.

There is no evidence of the chicks... no feathers... no bodies... no blood... nothing... Its like they were abducted by Aliens...

 

[jqs birds]

How many chicks are dissapearing each time?

 

[4HillsSumatras]

Sounds like a snake to me. But they usally will only swallow a couple. How may vanished? Do you think they excaped through the hole?

 

[Soccer Mom]

If you lose a couple chicks at a time and no more, my guess would be snake. I had one picking off ducklings from a coop this spring.

 

[texascowboy1979]

Escape...

I do not belive they escaped... The hole was not there at night and appeared in the morning... and all the chicks were gone..

Each time I buy 4 or 5 chicks.

The 1st time, 4 chicks were bought and 4 went missing.. 2 days later, I bought 4 more chicks and 3 went missing... and I was left withone... Then 3 days later I bought 4 more chicks for a total of 5 chicks and they all went missing...


The hole is perfet... No signs of a large animal digging... its like the hole has been there fore weeks... even thow I know it happend over night... i will take pictures tomorrow and post them on this post for you all to see....

 

[Soccer Mom]

A perfect little hole is the calling card of a snake. Yes, four or five at night wouldn't be too many. I know that they are properly called Rat Snakes, but my Grandma always called them Chicken Snakes and she had a good reason.

 

[texascowboy1979]

Hey soccer mom... do you think that plywood under the pen would solve the problem...?

 

[tabatha_westcott]

Be careful about the rat poison

 

[texascowboy1979]

I put the rat poison in places I expect to find rats or where they would hide, but still away where the dogs cant get to it....

 

[Soccer Mom]

Yes, putting flooring in can help. You'll need to attach the fencing to the flooring, but that will stop the tunnelling under.

(BTW: fellow Texan here! Howdy!)