Terrible news

[b.hromada]

I'm so sorry about your loss.

You have kind neighbors, it sounds like. I hope that you get to the bottom of this, and it doesn't happen again.

 

[conny63malies]

Gonna be camping on the back deck. .22 is sighted in, I did stay up most of last night. Checked on them every 45 minutes to an hour. Had my 9mm on my side just INCASE. This is war

Yeah, pretty nice for my neighbors

we look out for each other on this dead end dirt road

I'm still upset though. My barred rocks were sweethearts. These ones are wild birds. The guy had tons in his back yard. We had to catch these with nets lol

My new favorite is a .17HMR . I can take a rabbit at 100 yards. They have a higher firepower than a .22, but the ammo is more expensive.

 

[farmerkevin]

Have n

 My new favorite is a .17HMR  . I can take a rabbit at 100 yards. They have a higher firepower than a .22, but the ammo is more expensive.

While I would love to have something more than a .22, the new houses behind me are full of people who love to be nosey. If I fire off something louder than a pellet gun or a subsonic .22, the cops are knocking on my door.

But when I move................

 

[farmerkevin]

Ugh. This is frustrating.

So I finally get done with my day at about 10pm.

I go back there to check on them, and 2 are missing already. Look in the corner of the run, and there is a hole chewed through. I hear something, turn, and see something dart across the yard and through the chainlink fence into my grammas house. Looked like a rabbit or squirrel size.

So I go looking for my chickies and they are in my other neighbors trees. It's just gonna have to wait until Monday. I'm busy all day tomorrow, sun up to sun down. While I don't work per se, I belong to a church that does a lot of service work for our community. Yesterday, I mowed a older families lawn, trimmed a tree and cut up 2 20'+ tree trunks. All free of charge. Tomorrow, I'll be out of town, trading one of my cars for parts to finish my truck. Then I'll be in another part of town doing who knows what. I'll know tomorrow. I think I had more free time working 2 full time jobs haha

 

[sumi]

I'm so sorry to hear about your losses. The problem with predators is once they know where there's easy prey... I had to trap and dispose of a few critters myself. Once they discovered my chickens, it was a massacre. Securing the run with an apron of hardware cloth will help keep the more determined critters out. It's pricey, but well worth the expense! There are lots of tips on predator proofing coops and runs with links to the discussions in the articles here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicken-predators-pests-how-to-protect-treat-your-flock

Best of luck!

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry to hear about the losses. I don't suppose you're allowed to have Livestock Guardian Dogs or anything like that where you are? What about night lights that trigger on movement? It would really suck if it were your own dog. It may be worth running a 'hotwire' around the coop where it will only touch something trying to get in, not be where it can hurt the poultry. You could turn it on only at night if need be. I don't know, just random ideas.

I intend to get at least one llama/alpaca, donkey or similar to guard my stock and run any strange dogs off the property or kill them. I can't have a gun here. It's not the easiest thing, having dogs that have strong opinions about your other animals, but livestock guardians really seem to be the ideal solution to me; one of my dogs has decided that wool sheep are fair game, so I'm having to do some serious retraining with him, even though he was raised with hair sheep and poultry and other pets he knows are all off limits.

A Maremma for example could sleep in the chicken coop. If I had one, no fox and probably not too many pythons would give me grief then! Just recently I caught two pythons a few nights apart, knocking chickens off the perch. Nightlights, guardian animals, and when I move again, some sort of gun, might be my best bet. But maybe you can't get such animals where you are, or don't have the space or time? Anatolians were another LGD that were supposed to be even better than Maremmas because they worked at night and would even take eagles that were attacking livestock, whereas Maremmas were more likely to ignore all birds rather than differentiate between birds of prey and their prey.

Best wishes. Hope you find a long term solution. Certainly once the predators have identified your place as a takeaway joint, you've got to step up security permanently.

 

[farmerkevin]

Where I'm at was annexed into city. We were rr (rural residential) and were allowed to have horses. Now we are r13000 (single family residence.)

I have thought of a goat or something. But because my yard is full of fruit trees, I have no more room for larger animals.

I let my chickies free roam today, though they weren't interested. They just went back into their run lol.

But another blessing is that one of the chickies lays eggs. So I'm not out any eggs.

Tonight I'll be camping out there again. I'll catch this predator

 

[chooks4life]

Good luck with that. The area I'm in is quite similar in terms of having been rural residential but has become overgrown by suburbia and city development. I'm on acreage and right across the road is full-on suburbia. But I'm allowed to have animals here, it's large enough. Odd mix though.

Best wishes, hope you solve your issues.