Something is stalking my Quail

[FloorCandy]

last Thursday I found Big Bird paralyzed after hitting her head. She was a very calm bird, about a year old, fat and chill. None of the other birds were hurt, I put out a camera that night and saw nothing.

Fast forward, 2 days ago I found a dead male in male jail, he looked like something tried to grab him thru the wire, I have cinderblocks around the outside, but the males are notorious for standing on the inside cinderblock, the bowls, hides etc and crowing, and I’m wondering if he was on the house next to the side and a cat or raccoon tried to grab him, he had wounds only on one side of his body.

Since I didn’t want to take a chance, I moved the Tibetan tux hens from my breeder cage, which is a dog crate covered in hardware cloth, into the celadon general pop, this Monday, after I collected eggs for someone. The celadon cage is under the deck, has the sides, top, and edges all covered with a tarp and cinderblocks, it’s like ft Knox for quail. All has been well with them, Tiger and Aragorn were happy to have 5 more ladies. Yesterday we had a crazy storm, it looked like when Dorothy was trying to get to safety before the storm in the wizard of oz, just insane for like 30 minutes. I went out today, and found Tiger Millionaire dead! No injuries, possibly a broken neck, but the roof is only 22-24 inches high. I found poop on top of the pen, so something was definitely scaring them.

It is about the size of ferret poop:

Any ideas? The only predators we could really have are raccoons, I’ve never seen one in the woods, but I’ve seen them dead on the road not too far away, stray cats, foxes, hawks and owls, and maybe possums? Are they a predator? I’ve seen dead ones on the road as well. Anything else would be some fluke released pet or something. There’s no poop on the other cages. I’m gonna set up the camera again and see if I get anything on film.

 

[FloorCandy]

I’m going to incubate all the celadon eggs from his pen, and hope I get another pharaoh tux. The real threat is that I’m down to only 3 adult full celadon males and 1 chick male. I’ve lost 2/5 in less than a week. If I lose another I’m gonna bring Aragorn inside until I get this worked out, I’d be beyond devastated if I lost all my double celadon males.

 

[MadamContrary]

Looks like Possum poo. They have "opposable" type thumbs and can grab well. I have had to cover everything in 1/4 hardware cloth because of them and racoons

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

So sorry for your loss.

 

[FloorCandy]

Looks like Possum poo. They have "opposable" type thumbs and can grab well. I have had to cover everything in 1/4 hardware cloth because of them and racoons

Hmmmm, I’ll set up the camera, other than the male jail, which I moved the house away from the side so theres now nowhere they can be near the wire without a cinderblock protecting them outside the cage, none can be reached At all inside, so it’s just seeing them that’s scaring the birds. Even going from 1/2 in to 1/4 will still leave them able to see. I’m thinking about using zip ties to attach branches to the sides to block the view somewhat but still leave good ventilation.

 

[FloorCandy]

The worst part is, I have a garden bed I haven’t sorted out yet, and it has a bunch of eggs in it because the birds were on it all winter, nothing has taken any of those eggs, and I don’t see any footprints in the freshly turned (only partially because I’ve been lazy) dirt and stuff.

 

[vall]

Sorry about your loss. Those are some rare birds to lose

Critters can be dumb. A couple weeks ago a skunk walked past two pens of quail to go bother the ones in the aviary. It can't get within 5 feet of them due to a rabbit fence but just seeing the skunk was enough to make them start flushing which woke me up. I am going to add some old shade cloth to that rabbit fence as a privacy screen (and fix the gap under the gate where the skunk got in). I've been leaning some plywood in front of the other pens at night, too, just to keep them out of sight from anything that wanders in.

 

[HillGuy]

Maybe this will help, poop guide: https://www.wildliferemoval.com/poop-identification-guide/

 

[FloorCandy]

Maybe this will help, poop guide: https://www.wildliferemoval.com/poop-identification-guide/

Based on that guide, I would guess possum or fox. Do foxes climb? The poop was on top of the cage.

 

[neo71665]

Sorry about your loss. Those are some rare birds to lose

Critters can be dumb. A couple weeks ago a skunk walked past two pens of quail to go bother the ones in the aviary. It can't get within 5 feet of them due to a rabbit fence but just seeing the skunk was enough to make them start flushing which woke me up. I am going to add some old shade cloth to that rabbit fence as a privacy screen (and fix the gap under the gate where the skunk got in). I've been leaning some plywood in front of the other pens at night, too, just to keep them out of sight from anything that wanders in.

Skunks are actually pretty smart they just have really poor eyesight. It was either following a sound or scent.

That is possum scat. A fox climbs about like a dog will.