We got the coon! UPDATE theres more coons now Help!!

[joebryant]

QUESTION:
I don't know know if it's true or false, but I have read posts on this forum several times that were written by several different people saying that when a raccoon gets in a chicken house they kill ALL the chickens that SAME night, not one a night. One a night sounds more like a fox.

 

[featherbaby]

I live in a residential neighborhood. When I first moved in I had a raccoon that dug up my flower beds on a nightly basis. I didn't want to harm a living creature, but felt he shouldn't harm my precious plants either. So I got a havahart trap and caught him on the FIRST night! Yay! I relocated him far far away. The next night, same damage to the plants. I repeated the process. 68 Raccoons later, I gave up. YES, 68! I counted them. And I never trapped the same one twice (I marked the back of their head with orange landscape paint).

My point is....you don't have just ONE. You need to be prepared to wage this war on your predators for at least a month to be sure you have solved the problem.

In Florida they have now passed a law that you cannot relocate them. They say over half of them carry rabies which makes them dangerous to the population of people, pets and livestock. I have a friend who hunts and he has been kind enough to dispatch all that I trap. Problem solved. Finally.

 

[Roy]

In my opinion, coons kill for fun, not so much for food. I think that it would stay in the coop all night just to kill one more chicken...

 

[ninny]

We were trying to catch him when he was getting in the cat food. Got a possum. He's died now. I don't think a fox could get in the coop They don't climb walls i don't think. We've had coons before but they got hit on the road before we could shoot them. If we catch them they get shoot end of story. Its just catching this one. If we spilled cat food in a open area and DH waited for it would that work? Is there any chance one of my barn cats could be killing them? I had a ten pound roo and 3 hens disapear a coulpe weeks go same day and now there being taking out of coop at night. Im getting to the point of having chickens is not fun anymore. I lost my whole flock last year to a owl and really bad weather. Now i'm done to ten birds from 30 chicks last spring cause of one pred after another. I'm now designing fort chicken which i posted in the coop building section. If I lose birds out of that im done. I really want to get back into show birds too.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Why do you think that an owl is not going in the hole now and taking one each night?

 

[J3172]

I dont think an owl can carry a ten pound bird that more then it ways by far.

 

[AHappychick]

Quote:
Lol that's what I do I can't shoot them so I drown them just tie the rope before tou trap and you can use a big garbage pail just fill with water and drop in. You will loose your whole flock soon if you don't react now. Good luck

 

[ninny]

The owl was last year. He left after i started locking up the birds at night so they couldn't get out. He would fly by and the roos would run out when they saw the shadow and he'd nailed them. Theres a hawk hanging around but i highly doubt its him. I talked to some raptor resucers and they said it would be highly unlikly. They said it sounded more like a fox.

 

[fowler_chick]

it was noted by our local shirreffs dept last year that a high amount of cats were dispearing........to every's surprise it was a owl swooping down on them and taking them

 

[ninny]

Quote:
Yup it took our kittens too. Lost another bird. I'm down to 3 roos and 5 hens. We board everything up and still lost one. I think a feral cat may have nab her. She was a little leghorn.