We have our first predator... Opussum

[JNorth]

Last night at around midnight I noticed our girls making an awful lot of noise. Oddly enough thought it was frantic or alarming, it actually sounded like their egg songs. I had DH go out and check anyway and they were running in circles. We've been letting them out in the run during the night lately, but they usually just roost at night anyway. It's more so that they don't to wait for me to open the coop in the morning. So he got them into the coop and closed them in for the night. Then he started looking around and in the tree that hangs just over the run was a gigantic opossum. I've lived in the country my whole life and this is the biggest opossum I've ever seen. Anyway, our run is completely enclosed so I'm not sure what he was up to, other than potentially grabbing one through the fence (which he's not gonna be able to do anymore because we will be locking the girls up from now on). By the time we came back out with the appropriate eviction notice... he was gone.

We are working on getting some traps together for tonight... what's the best bait? We will also be pruning the tree back a little bit.

 

[GuineaMama]

I use peanut butter in my traps. Catches possums and coons.

 

[feather13]

How scary! We had our first predator attack last night, too. It was an opossum and it killed our lakenvelder. I had stupidly not taken a watermelon rind out of the pen, so am thinking that's what drew it in. Maybe a slice of watermelon might work as bait for your trap.

 

[JNorth]

I might just try that. Last night we used PB and ended up trapping a cat. It was not very happy with me... well fed though. Hoping we have better luck tonight or that the opossum was just traveling through the other night.

 

[JNorth]

Success!

Me: 1, Opossum: 0


And I got him before he got my chickens!

 

[Greyfox Farm]

Yeah!

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Yah! Good for you! We had a possum that kept coming around our pens. i kept shooing it off and didn't want to kill it as i didn't think it could or would get into our coops. Then came out one morning to find it tangled up in the aviary netting over a small coop of chickens on our porch. That was it. My husband took it out with death-by-a-thousand-pellets. That was messy.

 

[JNorth]

Ooh, I will have to pass that info along to my husband.... choose your ammo wisely! Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[Coop Deville]

Yah! Good for you! We had a possum that kept coming around our pens. i kept shooing it off and didn't want to kill it as i didn't think it could or would get into our coops. Then came out one morning to find it tangled up in the aviary netting over a small coop of chickens on our porch. That was it. My husband took it out with death-by-a-thousand-pellets. That was messy.

Here's what death by 25 pellets looks like. This little jerk took out my Buff Orpington and one of my EEs:

 

[feather13]

Good for you! Caught one last night in a live trap too. It had eaten our Lakenvelder the night before. Word to the wise: they will definitely come back to pick off your chickens, one by one. I baited the trap with a can of tuna, set it outside the coop pen, and called the local Humane Society (they will cart away trapped wild/feral animals for free). To be honest, although it ate a chicken, I have a soft spot for wild creatures and would have a hard time killing one. I don't judge others who can and do though.