What eats heads off of ducks and Chickens

[builtonrock]

Sadddd Chrismas night, Morning of 26th at around 4am Resting livestock guardian went out to get the attacker, occasionaly there may be one bird missing from the hen house outside of which I keep a baited racoon trap. I think I'm trying for mink, skunk, or weasil because its a tight hole they pull the hen through. Doubt its red or silver fox but they sometimes swip one in the morning when the birds go out free range. The dog usually keeps them from being sucsessfull. This time it was a masacure upon the green house. Missing 3 call ducks, 5 Bantam roosters 8 - 12 week muscovy and rouen hens, found dead 3 muscovy, 1 peahen, 1 rhode island red, out on the lawn there was one muscovy missing her head, another rouen missing her head in the green house. See no footprints in the crusty snow, All other livestock are fine. Got a problem on my hands and don't want to give up. Need to lock everyone now in the kennel cage. Any ideas and sugestions, I've wanted a night time cam, can't stay up all night to hunt, dog usually on guard all night with some exceptions. This was one....Tonight I Need to set some more livetraps I guess with cat food.

 

[mairead]

when i had this happen to me it was raccoons and they went for the ducks first right for the heads/neck....i was so upset but we captured a total of 9 raccoons so far.

 

[Gilbynglen]

Hi, a bit late but I still have a resolution. We live is eastern Ontario Canada. We've had in the past 5 weeks 4 ducks, one rooster and on toulouse goose killed. Their neck was opened, nothing else. No roosting birds were touched, only the ones sleeping on the ground. My partner and I double covered with chicken wire the big cages that the ground birds were put in, installed 2 snairs and three cages. We also installed a baby monitor in the barn. The next evening around 11:30pm, while watching TV, we could hear a noise in the baby monitor resembling to metal. We went to the barn see and there it was, a big brown ferret caught in one of the cage. We shot it with the 22. The body with tail was almost 19". We keep the same ritual and so far we have not lost any more birds.
Good luck to everyone.

 

[DogThatHunts]

I lost two ducks to a very large (over 40lb) male raccoon -- one was taken entirely; the second duck's head was chewed but otherwise the carcass was intact. I caught the raccoon the next night when he came back to collect his second kill.

 

[chicken pickin]

I sadly just had my first predator attack. Yesterday morning I found 1 10 week old rooster headless and leg less. I can only blame myself as 13 chickens and turkeys were young and growing out to be dinner or large enough for a coop with adult birds. Well yesterday I decided to take all of what I could and rearranged coops and put 5 chickens in with the adults. Still leaving 4 young roosters and 3 young turkeys. I couldnt get my chicken tractor out of storage yesterday to house the remaining boys so I moved them to a new sleeping spot lastnight and tucked them up in trees hoping they would be safe. I was very wrong and I woke up this morn to 3 headless 10 week old roosters one of who was my replacement rooster. AGH Im so mad at myelf no one to blame but me for my slacking on protecting. I did scare a cat off this morn right before I found the irds. Is it possile a cat did this or was it just coincidence he was passing through? Either way I know whatever it is its going to come back again tonight. Im going to make sure every bird is in a safe location.

 

[horiz26]

We, here in California, had this happen, too. It turned out to be a weasel. According to neighbors with animals, they tend to pass through areas, take advantage of available "food" supplies until there isn't anymore, and then move on to somewhere with a plentiful food supply. I guess racoons tend to do this, too. We have a wire enclosure that our ducks had access to all night outside of a wooden shed. We started locking up our ducks inside the secure wooden shed overnight...no more problems. About 3 weeks later, while we went on a trip and had neighbor kids feed our animals, they got lax about locking up our birds at night, but there were no more "missing heads" or missing birds. I guess the weasel moved on to happier hunting grounds.

Possible alternate solutions: A wire fence with tiny holes around the bottom (small than chicken wire) or a double wire fence might work, too, where the birds heads couldn't reach past the outer one.

 

[cypressdrake]

I had a mink kill up to 30 chickens a night. They will suck blood and sometimes remove the head, but mostly just suck blood from throat area. I also had a racoon eat the heads off 2-3 per night.
The coons would stick their hand in coop and pull out the head and chew it off.

Minks kill for sport, they're very territorial like a badger or wolverine.

I put traps and caught one mink, and then I hung the mink from a near by tree until it rotted off. I never had an attack since. I also put a radio playing loud music 24 hours a day in my barn.
Wildlife don't like loud noise.

 

[weeshanti]

Just found the second headless chicken in three weeks. Thankfully there wasn't a massacre, but the first attack was a on a full-grown rooster in my full-size chicken coop. Head missing, body left otherwise in tact on the coop floor; he must have been pulled right off his roost. I buttoned up the holes with small wire, but this morning I found one of the hens in my bantam coop in the same condition, except in addition to eating her head, the critter also ripped open her abdomen and ate a nearly-laid egg. Lovely.

We have had possums before - trapped and shot many - but they never killed the birds, only ate the grain. Based on the size of any possible holes left, I'm thinking this must be a weasel. Has anyone tried fox urine as a deterrent? I think I'll get some today and sprinkle the perimeters of each coop. I'm considering the music option cypressdrake mentioned, too - hadn't heard that, but am getting very nervous. I have an open-fenced coop of ducks in the same barn, and they are wide open to attack. They're in an open bay of the barn with only pig fence around them. They were outside all summer/fall with no casualties, but I'm thinking winter is bringing in the predators. Dang.

 

[deez nuts]

deez nuts

 

[gbraathen]

My birds live in aviaries completely encased in 1 inch chicken wire with 2 inch by 4 inch welded wire fencing all around. 30 feet by 40 feet and nothing can get in, dig under or get out, yet I had a dead headed bird lying on the ground. It turned out that hawks, eagles and even big ravens would try to get the birds if they stuck can get their heads out of the top fence which was 2 inch chicken wire over the welded wire. I had to shorten all the perches to just 4 feet off the ground. Still, some birds will fly up, hang onto the fencing and try to look outside the fencing.