Unusual, cautious behaviour this morning - all 3 chooks!

[beeater4]

Hello all at BYC!
As a first timer I've done my best to search previous forums, and apologise in advance if this behaviour has been addressed before...

This morning I went to the coop as usual to let out our 3 friends and they were not behaving as usual.
1. They did not rush towards the door to be let out and see what tasty treats I had brought them. Only one pecked at the snails I brought in.
2. They did not make the usual greeting clucks, but instead made tiny peeping noises.
3. They were in the back of the coop, and their movements were strange! They were extending their necks and moving their necks frantically. Now I could be imagining this but their eyes were really open and bulging, it looked like they were quite frightened
4. They didn't come out of the coop when I left the door open (so I closed it and left them in for an hour)

They all looked quite stressed and frightened and I suspect there was an attempted predator attack on them last night. Has anyone else experienced this behaviour before? Tonight we will lay out some traps and see if we catch anything I think. It will be quite stressful if we do catch something! I'm not sure what we will do with it!

All 3 seem ok now and are doing their thing, so hopefully no long lasting affects. I look forward to hearing any thoughts you may have!

Many thanks!

 

[Dar]

what you can do is rake the ground around the coop so that you can catch the tracks of who ever it may be that may be trying to enter the coop... this will do 2 things... ID them and show you where you are going so you can make sure the coop is secure... if the ground is to hard you can sprinkle flour on the ground to try and get tracks too.

I think you are fight something scared the jeepers outta them

 

[beeater4]

Thanks for your advice, what a great idea to identify the intruder by their footprints! It was a large feral cat that scared my friends. I have spent many hours ensuring their home is predator proof, so I'm quite confident it won't get in...still scary from the outside though! Many thanks for your contribution and your friendly 'welcome' banner