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

[monkeybacon]

Okay. They are both gone. And i scattered the area with choped garlic. Hopefully they wont return and the birds are hiding in their usual tree. Sweet dreams for them at least. In the spring ill rebuild the coop.

 

[okallthis4eggs]

Okay. They are both gone. And i scattered the area with choped garlic. Hopefully they wont return and the birds are hiding in their usual tree. Sweet dreams for them at least. In the spring ill rebuild the coop.

Get them a safe coop that you can lock them in at night and you won't have to worry about those things. Glad you were able to solve the problem.

 

[Jipus5]

We had a terrible time with something at our farm last night. The trackers think it was either a St. Bernard size dog or a wolf - which we don't normally have wolves in this area. They thought at first it was a cougar, large feet, but they decided that due to the carnage it was more a dog like creature. It tore the door off a little breeder hut and killed Lady, a Buckeye hen and maimed her mate, Tressel. They were SOP quality breeders. I was breeding them for possible show stock. The creature then got into my duck barn and killed a muscovy hen, and two Khaki Campbell Drakes. Two more drakes have spinal injuries, 3 pekin hens have broken legs and two muscovy drakes have pieces missing. The neighborhood is on watch as we are a close farming community. The dog warden said when it comes back, which they believe it will come back tonight, to shoot to kill. We are heartsick and have blocked all the doors and windows of the barns and have the remaining ducks closed into a small pen. I have the injured ones in the basement giving them antibiotics and electrolytes. The vet said the ones with the spinal injuries might have to be put down. I have never had anything this big get into barns and I am heartsick........

May not be the most attractive, BUT, I have paint.... anyway, I went to a local dr shipping company, and got several tractor trailer doors from their wrecked vehicles. CHEAP CHEAP!!! Anyway, Used 2x4's on the interior to attatch each to the other then applied a full wooden door on half of the 4th side and made my coop! Since they are 100% free ranged most of the time, keeping predators away has been hard. So, we bought a GREAT PYRENEES and since that dog turned 4 months old...all of my problems are gone! He really wants to sleep INSIDE the coop, but I put his doghouse just outside the coop door. He ranges with them all day.
Now, when I start hatching again, I place 2 large metal dog kennels on top one another in front of the coop door, which allows about a 1 foot opening at the top. Hens can fly up and get inside to lay or roost. I drag the kennels away and close the door each night. I open the bottom kennels door to where the chicks can walk outside and make a dirt bath on the ground of the kennel which had no bottom covering. As they get a lil older, I have 3 more kennels I place them in according to age, each one further and further from the coop in our yard so they can forage. Teaches my incubated chicks bravery since they have no mama to learn from. Plus keeps predators out and the dog too... Pyrenees want to protect, BUT if you have small ones too timid to range, he will eat small chicks - not knowing who to stay near. Since I started doing this with the yard kennels, they have no problem ranging once 'graduating'. They like the tree branches and fallen limb chunks I stick in there to forage around and roost on.
Seems to help.

 

[The Lazy L]

It was a plywood door and was blocked with a metal fencepost. It knocked the fence post out of the ground and pulled the door away. ...

Have you thought about using latches to keep the door shut instead of a fence post leaning against the door?

 

[McCaskill]

just lost my first hens to an attack. Im not even sure what it was but the only resin it got my girls was because my mom didn't lock the door like i told her. i got home at 10:30 after work and swim practice and was a walking sack of sleepiness and i ask my mom if she put my babes up and she said yea next morning i go to let them out find one hen in the nest box one in my yard and my roo injured so I'm getting two new hens friday and maybe more in march and beefing my security thanks to some help from my dad!

 

[Jipus5]

Would everybody agree that coons are enemy #1 to people who keep chickens? Seems they are at least the smartest from what I read in kyohts comment and others like it.

I really think it depends on what part of the country you live in... we have raccoon here, but the real problem are the red fox. It is illegal in Louisiana to do ANYTHING to a fox unless it is attacking a human and that must be videoed to keep from jailtme! Can't trap, remove, shoot, kill, or harm, EVER! Protected by the Louisiana Fur Trade, which sucks, cause they got 118 of mine last year! Huge loss for me, my own fault though since our Rottweiler died, and I free range 100% except at night, building used as coop. So they came in packs! It was awful.
BUT!!!!! We got a great pyrenees, and happiness abounds!

 

[okallthis4eggs]

Quote: Good point. Here in Kentucky the coyote population is so large you almost never see a fox or a groundhog anymore. Coyotes have about wiped out the foxes and the groundhogs in the area I live in. Wish they would start working on the raccoons now.

 

[bunnibird55]

It was a temporary breeding hut. I have 38 breeders in the regular coop that has locks and latches. This hut had a fence all around it and I have never, in 30 years of living here, had any large predators get my birds. I also have some old layers and turkeys in the big pole barn that has regular locks on the doors and those too were safe. The critter got into the brooder coop that has two black labs with a kennel at that end, so I never thought anything would be brazen enough to come into that barn - it is 80 feet long - to attack my ducks. I got a real wakeup call that when something is a nasty predator, it will go to any lengths to get my birds. The predator actually entered the coop through the door that is directly below my big security light. Again, I thought a predator would never venture past dogs and under a light. My birds paid for my confidence that things were well protected.

 

[LucyAndClaire]

Claire, my wyandotte did get attacked by something, we dont know what. We found her with her neck ripped open. We nursed her back and she survived. Her feathers haven't grown back though. I was so scared, I honestly thought she wasn't going to make it as the wound got infected and went green. We managed to save her, I'm so happpy, I love that chicky! Does anyone what could've done that?

 

[okallthis4eggs]

Claire, my wyandotte did get attacked by something, we dont know what. We found her with her neck ripped open. We nursed her back and she survived. Her feathers haven't grown back though. I was so scared, I honestly thought she wasn't going to make it as the wound got infected and went green. We managed to save her, I'm so happpy, I love that chicky! Does anyone what could've done that?

Fox, Coyote, Dog, Hawk, Owl, Coon, Bobcat, Possum, or any number of other predators could have done that.Protect them from predators.