What am I? day time predator.

[ThiefPouter06]

I hunt around 4-6 oclock. From the feather piles I strike from the edge of the thicket as the chickens walk by and drag them a good distance inside before killing them. (2 acre square thicket of cedars, briars and stuff.) I took one full size sumatra roo, and two full grown standard wyadnotte one day and tried to take a full grown brahma two days later. I was scared off when a human heard the brahma cry and I let her go, I outran and outsmarted the dog she turned loose on me.


My guess is a fox feeding its young. I dont guess there is any real way to protect my free ranging hens? Foxes can climb fences correct?

 

[Gullygarden]

Or a dog. You can use a large electric mesh run and move it as needed. I had to do that because of my neighborhood dogs. google electric chicken mesh. I have a picture on my byc page. The solar charger makes it easy.

 

[ThiefPouter06]

Thought of that but dogs would probably have left peices and they wouldnt have dissapeared.

 

[southerndesert]

Depending on your location a coyote(s) could be responsible.....

 

[cafarmgirl]

I would suspect fox or coyote as well. And yes fox can get over fences very easily, actually coyotes are quite good at it too. A good fence with strategically placed strands of hot wire is a very good deterrent. Very hard to protect free ranging chickens unless you have a good LGD. Once the predator has discovered such easy pickings it will return until it has wiped out the food source.

 

[jojo@rolling acres farm]

Fox. Same methods used here two years ago.

 

[sourland]

Fox, coyote, bobcat all similar snatch and run predators.

 

[Dutchess]

Fox got mine, 4 in two days, and it was exactly as you say, strikes from the edge of a thicket/woods leaving only a small pile of feathers.

 

[hawcer]

Put a GPS chip in a unwanted chicken...wait a day after it disappears and then go hunting. J/K...