The Old Folks Home

[FridayYet]

So sorry Alaskan, that's just awful news.

 

[drumstick diva]

Alaskan, that is the problem with well hidden coops, pens, runs. You can hardly see them, so don't know looting and pillaging has been going on.

So very sorry. BTW what is a stoat?

 

[casportpony]

Alaskan, I'm so sorry!

-Kathy

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Rotten luck.

You need some good things to happen to you for a change.

 

[Peep_Show]

Alaskan --

It won't bring your bird projects back, but

 

[lindalouly]

Just.........


Just........

Horrid bad.

So, my veggie yard coop, that I have been using for years with ZERO losses... Nice fence, and I have a net over the top... It is also solid weeds, so great cover.....

Turns out "something" (I think a great horned owl), took 26 grow-outs out of that pen before I noticed.... Left me 6, only 2 girls. There goes the money I was gonna make this year to help pay for feed........

Then, Friday night, that same owl (I am guessing) wedged itself through the tiny open vents on my pond coop, and ate our sweet broody mama and her 4 chicks one month old (two females of a wonderful color), and then this morning I go to the bantam coop and find 3 (the least loved, and least valued, and least valuable) chickens standing up on the high beam that is in the run.

I look around, and all of the beloved (a few 4 year old pets) and highly valuable (my breeding stock from pips and peeps -wheaten Ameraucanas) and beloved chickens and rooster.. All on the ground, here and there, dead.

A stoat (tiny weasel) got in through the 1" by 2" wire fence, bit their throats, drank their blood...then killed the next..... Except for on girl that it ate a bit of, and tried to drag through the fence.....

My three most lovely bantam wheaten girls, two had perfect coloring.

My bantam wheaten rooster....

The tiny little d'anver girl that my kids adored....

Their 4 year old pets that I had promissed that we would keep forever......

All gone.


AND I had just gotten rid of ALL of the grow-outs yesterday.....

I texted the guy that took the bantam wheaten ameraucana cockerels..... An hour after he finished butchering the last one....

Yep... No One else has them in the state of Alaska.

Now I am wondering how I am going to catch the stoat.... Wondering how I can keep the great horned owl from my stock......

I have a mass of baby muscovy ducklings right now...... Today...... Maybe not tomorrow.

That bantam coop was a great coop...it withstood a black bear last year.... Those stoats though, can get in a gap that is one inch square....

Ohhh no so sorry....

 

[Latestarter]

Dang it all to heck and back Alaskan... That just royally sucks! Sorry you have another "thing" to deal with. This couldn't have all happened at once... had to happen over at least several days (nights)... Didn't the boys notice anything when they went out to feed & water, or collect eggs? Speaking of which, do you have any eggs left from them that you could throw in the bator? Maybe save something from the fiasco? I know a couple days ago you were all about downsizing, but I don't think this forced downsizing was what you envisioned. Really sorry.

Diva, a stoat is one of the smaller of the weasels Not THE smallest, but they can fit through a hole the size of a quarter.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/Documents/ab...on-revealed/ferrets-stoats-weasels-lowres.pdf

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/worlds-deadliest-ngs/deadliest-stoat

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: It's just the way you phrased it. That's all.

Scg it was cute the way you said it. I am sorry. I should have just said that earlier.

 

[perchie.girl]

@Alaskan

deb

 

[Alaskan]

Dang it all to heck and back Alaskan... That just royally sucks! Sorry you have another "thing" to deal with. This couldn't have all happened at once... had to happen over at least several days (nights)... Didn't the boys notice anything when they went out to feed & water, or collect eggs? Speaking of which, do you have any eggs left from them that you could throw in the bator? Maybe save something from the fiasco?  I know a couple days ago you were all about downsizing, but I don't think this forced downsizing was what you envisioned. Really sorry.

Diva, a stoat is one of the smaller of the weasels Not THE smallest, but they can fit through a hole the size of a quarter.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/Documents/ab...on-revealed/ferrets-stoats-weasels-lowres.pdf

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/worlds-deadliest-ngs/deadliest-stoat

Yeah, it makes it SUPER hard to keep the stoats out, close to impossible, since even a door that doesn't fit perfectly tightly is a gateway for them. And, they can climb up and find high access points, tiny holes in the roofing, or vents, etc. The fact that they love wholesale slaughter...so they get in one night and in the morning your flock of 40 is down to zero... Makes it difficult too.

The owl is easier to keep out.... I just didn't think it could squeeze through the open eves... I should have known better...it had never happened before....so I thought that the holes were small enough.

And yes Diva, the super overgrown stealth-ness of the veggie garden coop meant that the owl could have been eating them for a week before we noticed. Since they were grow-outs, they didn't yet come when called....so I would sit quietly out there every so often and try to count them... But it was solid growth (inside a very strong dog-proof fence) so I just thought that they were hiding. There was a small gap in the overhead netting by the entrance gate..which is where the owl must have gotten in.

After we realized that the owl had eaten everything, and we saved the survivors.... I just didn't think that there was anything else that he could get. Great horned owls are big beasts.

I had forgotten that it would be able to squeeze through the eves.... The pond coop is pretty far away from the veggie coop.... it just didn't dawn on me...

And then the very next night to get hit by the stoat! That is my very first stoat attack ever!