What happened in my coop?

[594chickens]

Good morning everyone?

The strangest thing happened this morning. At 4am my hens were screaming. We had raccoons kill our chickens before so we reinforced all entry. Almost every night i see the raccoons on my (cheap and barely works) camera. They play outside looking for a way in but don't actually get in.

So last night the raccoons were there. the bedding in the coop is a mess. there are tons of feathers all over the run and one of my hens has a bit of blood on her beak. but there are no signs the raccoons got in.

What could have happened????

 

[sourland]

What type fencing ? Sounds as if they were terrorizing your birds through run fencing. They will climb on and run around the pen and try to grab any bird that gets close to the fencing. Sounds like time for either fencing or raccoon elimination.

 

[DobieLover]

Is the blood on your hen's beak her blood?
Is it possible that the hens woke up enough to try to defend themselves from the raccoons and one of them got a good peck through the wire and that is raccoon blood on her beak?
I haven't owned chickens long enough to experience illness or attack yet so I am just shooting in the dark here!

 

[Flockandfowl46]

The coons may have gotten your hens into a panic and that's how the injury or blood could have occurred

 

[staceyj]

Or they could have gotten so worked up over the raccoons outside that it cause them to scuffle amongst themselves inside.

 

[cmom]

Is your game camera set up so you can see what's going on. I have some set up in different places. I do see predators most every night on at least one of the cameras. I have my cameras set on video but have a program so I can capture frames and some of the cameras have better picture quality. The first 2 pictures were taken from the exact same spot with 2 different cameras.

 

[CluckyrulesOK]

Good morning everyone?

The strangest thing happened this morning. At 4am my hens were screaming. We had raccoons kill our chickens before so we reinforced all entry. Almost every night i see the raccoons on my (cheap and barely works) camera. They play outside looking for a way in but don't actually get in.

So last night the raccoons were there. the bedding in the coop is a mess. there are tons of feathers all over the run and one of my hens has a bit of blood on her beak. but there are no signs the raccoons got in.

What could have happened????

i had the exact thing with my chickens

 

[RWise]

Maybe run an electric fence wire along the bottom of the fence, and another up maybe 24" or so,,,

 

[Northern.Ontario]

My guess is they were reaching their hands in through any tiny opening they could find and trying to grab a chicken.

 

[cmom]

I have seen coons on my game cameras but so far they have not bothered my birds. I do have electric around my coop and pens and I don't think coons are jumpers but rather climbers so If they try to climb and touch the wire they will know it. It has made my heart skip a few beats when I have forgotten to turn it off and touched it.