Tell How Predators Got Your Chickens. Save Somebody Else From The Bad Experience

[Earthologie]

I wish I could buy a guardian dog to help protect my chickens.... But I would feel bad making the dog live outside all day and night!

I just HATE it that everything wants to eat my birds! It's so sad!

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

With all these horror stories about predators making their way into the hardiest of coops I am pretty bewildered as to why I am constantly criticized on BYC for letting our flock roost way up in a big old pine tree at night. So far it has been almost a year since our flock started doing that on their own accord and we have not lost any from the tree. I understand that they are at risk up there, but reading this thread, I'm not convinced any coop is much safer!

Our chickens free-range all day in our fenced back yard and we did lose our Australorp hen to our own dogs one afternoon. I think it was because she was the slowest and most outgoing bird we had. We hand-raised our flock from chicks with our two adult dogs constantly there - a Pitbull/Corgi mix female and a Formosan Mountain Dog mix male. The dogs were totally used to the birds as our pets and all they had ever wanted to do was lick them. Or so we thought. Now the dogs only get to go in the yard when we are there to supervise, or after the chickens have roosted for the night. It sucks for our pooches but I can never trust them again unsupervised around chickens. Perhaps if I ever get a chance to raise a puppy around chickens, that might work, but with these two, never again.

 

[cheeka]

I am currently trying to figure out what type of bird of prey ate my pullet. I built a small aviary to keep some birds in. I noticed the young pullets and a polish roo were not getting enough food since they were low on the pecking order. I assumed I was helping them by putting them in the aviary to eat all day undisturbed. I was wrong! The aviary is made out of wood 2x4's and welded wire fence. Apparently two of the pullets were just small enough to get out of the fencing. They went for a stroll in the woods. quite a ways away, I found four piles of my chickens BLUE feathers. mixed in and right beside the feathers I found two white and brown striped feathers (either down feathers or contour feathers) that were NOT from my bird. Either an owl or a hawk ate my chicken. I was not able to find the remainder of her body. There was no blood and her feathers were cleanly picked from her skin. I feel so horrible! These pullets were so sweet and tame, and I thought I was helping them. It did NOT look like they would be able to get out of the fencing on my aviary, but I guess looks can be deceiving, because they did. There was NO sign of a struggle at the aviary. That's how I am pretty sure they simply went for a walk and was attacked. One of them died, the other one came running back home. ****** SO please make sure that the fencing you use has small enough holes!

Please check out my album Chicken Dome, or the CC thread The Chicken Dome - the entire thing is done with hardware cloth, no space larger than 1/2 inch, except the upper portion of the area by the door, that is 1" x 1/2" and that area is only a few feet on the top section of the enclosure... i do intend to replace it with hw cloth, but i ran out... the enclosure used 100' of the stuff, and all i have left is literally two little squares about 2" x 2" that was cut out to fit around the hinges of the coop so it could be threaded into the seams... hardware cloth is the way to go!

With all these horror stories about predators making their way into the hardiest of coops I am pretty bewildered as to why I am constantly criticized on BYC for letting our flock roost way up in a big old pine tree at night. So far it has been almost a year since our flock started doing that on their own accord and we have not lost any from the tree. I understand that they are at risk up there, but reading this thread, I'm not convinced any coop is much safer!

Our chickens free-range all day in our fenced back yard and we did lose our Australorp hen to our own dogs one afternoon. I think it was because she was the slowest and most outgoing bird we had. We hand-raised our flock from chicks with our two adult dogs constantly there - a Pitbull/Corgi mix female and a Formosan Mountain Dog mix male. The dogs were totally used to the birds as our pets and all they had ever wanted to do was lick them. Or so we thought. Now the dogs only get to go in the yard when we are there to supervise, or after the chickens have roosted for the night. It sucks for our pooches but I can never trust them again unsupervised around chickens. Perhaps if I ever get a chance to raise a puppy around chickens, that might work, but with these two, never again.

my new neighbors let their flock roost high in the pines and they have lost 4 roos and 1 hen in the last few weeks, 3 roos and the one hen disappeared around the same time as my 2 were taken by fox... we have lots of owls... although, many folks in the area have guinea fowl and they don't have any problems with them roosting in trees... good luck! sorry to hear about the dogs... usually once they are accustomed to them and know they belong it's usually fine, maybe they were "playing" and are just to big to be gentle? then again, once they get the taste they may go back for more...

 

[Missa Chickabee]

Yea, racoons are bad but a fox will take one right from under your nose in broad daylight!
I recently lost three of my four girls while they were free ranging. I happend to be in and out of the house that afternoon and wasn't paying enough attention to where they were ranging. They went to the edge of the woods and were scratching around in the dead leaves finding all kinds of good stuff. When I saw them I should have tempted them away with a treat, but I got lazy and figured they would be okay. PROBLEM #1. Never think they will be okay alone while free ranging. "I'll just leave them for a minute." That's all it takes.
I have to agree that racoons are very smart creatures. They can easily open a latch with their little "hands." But, they can be caught rather easily in a havaheart trap. Foxes are pretty smart when it comes to the havaheart traps. Very hard to catch! We did get a shot off at one of them last year, then we didn't see them for a long time. I say THEM because we saw two, together on a knoll in our front yard.
Now they're back feeding their spring time babies, again!

We recently caught a coon in the the havahart for racoons. It separated the hardwire cloth from the frame, released the spring bolt and escaped!! They can be so strong.

So my question is.....since I can't secure my run on top ( it's pretty big 50 feet by 20 ft ) what is the best way to secure the chicken door to the coop at night?

 

[rosebuds]

I feel like i lost my best friend.I am new at raising chickens.But i feel like i am doing a good job.I have 3 cocks and 13 girls that seem to be very happy.They have been a joy to watch every day. I am very protective of them.They have a nice big range all closed in by coop. But there is nothing better then free range they get so excited getting out and flying and running looking for bugs.Its more healthy for them.Well yesterday i lost my buff polish exotic rooster.He just fanished .I had been outside with all the chicks watching them free range as usual.My husband was out at the coop making our nest boxes for chicks to lay.And i was cleaning out the coop.Looked like rain and storm was coming up so i put all the chicks up.I noticed my exotic chick was missing.My husband and i looked all over trying to find him no luck.Was no evidence no feathers around nothing.I am very upset to lose one of my chicks.I am hoping he will show up soon.But right now i am even more protective and keeping chicks in there run for saftey.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

my new neighbors let their flock roost high in the pines and they have lost 4 roos and 1 hen in the last few weeks, 3 roos and the one hen disappeared around the same time as my 2 were taken by fox... we have lots of owls... although, many folks in the area have guinea fowl and they don't have any problems with them roosting in trees... good luck! sorry to hear about the dogs... usually once they are accustomed to them and know they belong it's usually fine, maybe they were "playing" and are just to big to be gentle? then again, once they get the taste they may go back for more...

Very sorry to hear of the losses. Sounds like most of your neighbors' losses were probably to a fox just like your own, so that doesn't seem like it was because of the tree-roosting. We live in an extremely urban area of Seattle and have no foxes, coyotes, or panthers, bobcats, etc. There are a few hawks and even a pair of eagles in a nearby park, but they don't hunt at night anyway. We have raccoons in the neighborhood for sure, but I don't see how they could possibly get as far out onto the branch as our hens roost. Our hens are smart and roost way out on the skinny part of the branch, too far out even for a small house cat by my reckoning. We did lose three from our coop to raccoons one night last fall when ours were only a few months old, which is what prompted them to start roosting in the tree despite our best efforts for a while to prevent it (we also figured out where the weakness was in the coop and fixed it). The only predator I worry much about is owls but so far so good. In this city I'm sure rats outnumber owls by about a million to one so I don't think the owls have much reason to go around looking for chickens in trees. I realize there is no 100% fail-proof method of protecting free-range chickens. I accept the risks and hope for the best. At this point I don't think I could get them to change their habits anyway. They love their tree home and I must say it is so much fun to watch them fly up there from the fence post and watch them hop from branch to branch every evening and settle in. They look absolutely gorgeous up there, too.

 

[Missa Chickabee]

It gets pretty scary reading all the accounts of predators on the site, but it's good info. So....just a few minutes ago I went outside to get something from the coop area and there was suddenly a huge squawking and all but two of the birds ran into their coop....the rooster and one my buffs. The hawk did not get either of them. Boaz the roo was worried about the one that somehow managed to get over the 6 foot fence....go figure. So I caught her (wiped me out trying to catch her, poor thing)

Our coop is predator-proof at night when they are closed-in but this run which, as I said, is uncovered and is about 50' by 20 to 25 feet.

I don't know the cost of Top-flight netting but we need an economical solution to this issue really quick because now that he has found my chickens, the hawk will be back.

 

[upmycreek]

I've lost two bantam Cochin chicks (7 weeks) to warf rats and just recently lost 7 araucanas, cochins and silkies to a red tailed hawk in one day! It was going to kill the entire flock if I hadn't walked outside to check on something. Mine were all free range and rooster high in trees at night, too and we have 4 dogs during the day out with them... Big dogs- great danes, german shepherds and boxers. The hawk just swooped right by them and me and took one out 5 feet from me! I was hysterical and we spent the rest of the day trying to catch the dozen still running around. We have since built a covered 15x15 run 6' tall with a 1/4" mesh top for the remaining which are miserable but alive. My pendescena and my andalusion may need to be released because they are having a meltdown with confinement :/ I'm wondering if they are too wiley for the hawk anyway. I dunno. It stinks losing your birds, especially when they are pets.

 

[Missa Chickabee]

I've lost two bantam Cochin chicks (7 weeks) to warf rats and just recently lost 7 araucanas, cochins and silkies to a red tailed hawk in one day! It was going to kill the entire flock if I hadn't walked outside to check on something. Mine were all free range and rooster high in trees at night, too and we have 4 dogs during the day out with them... Big dogs- great danes, german shepherds and boxers. The hawk just swooped right by them and me and took one out 5 feet from me! I was hysterical and we spent the rest of the day trying to catch the dozen still running around. We have since built a covered 15x15 run 6' tall with a 1/4" mesh top for the remaining which are miserable but alive. My pendescena and my andalusion may need to be released because they are having a meltdown with confinement

I'm wondering if they are too wiley for the hawk anyway. I dunno. It stinks losing your birds, especially when they are pets.

Wow. I can certainly empathize. I am so very sorry for your losses.

We just have to get that covered run built. We're stretched hard financially right now till we can sell a house hubby renovated but I don't want to wait and lose what we have invested emotionally and financially in our birds. I'm probably too attached to all my animals/birds. Just about lost our 17 yo cat in the heat last week, too.

But we're about chickens here. So. I need a enclosed run, too, and I want it as big as I can convince DH with some kind of shade. Then I want to clutter up the rest of the run (no roof)...which has some trees in the very back...with lots of obstacles (a trip to the dump might get me some "finds") and places they can run into and hide.

DH says he wants to plant apple trees in the run, too. I guess we love freedom ourselves and want to give the girls what makes them happy but they're like kids and have to be protected. I am open to any suggestions. Thaks

 

[LightningTFarm]

Down here we call black snakes "chicken snakes", I guess because you find them so often in the hen house eating eggs. They get big here, and I have seen plenty of copperheads over 4' long down here. But then, we grow everything bigger in Texas! I am glad my dad had already put up the chain link fence when he was using the house and run as a kennel, because I know that will keep out the bigger critters. We have a panther around here that a neighbor saw pick up a newborn calf by the head and carry it away (in the daytime), so I wouldn't want to trust my flock even to just hardware cloth. We also have lots of wild hogs around here tearing up everybody's pasture, and hogs will eat anything. Once I get all the hardware cloth up I think that will stop the big snakes. Ducks will eat frogs, mice and small snakes, as they are omnivorous. I started out with 17 ducks, and I'm down to 10. I am not losing any more!! I am afraid to let them out of the run. I don't have power out at the duck house, so it will be a major undertaking to try to put some electric fence up around my garden/orchard so they can run around outside. But, that is the long-range plan. I am also considering getting a pair of smallish geese, which I hear are good lookouts when you have ducks on pasture. I am open to any ideas anyone may have! Thanks for your help and condolences.