What killed my chickens?

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

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Consider the possibility, too, that your son was not being truthful about the gate being left open. Even good kids will tell an untruth if they are afraid they did something wrong. i'm sorry about your chickens.

 

[dacjohns]

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Sucking blood is an old wives tale but they will kill chickens.

Sucking blood is NOT an old wives tale. I thought it was an old wives tale too until my friend showed me this website.

A quote from the united wildlife.com/AnimalsWeasel.

Occasionally weasels raid poultry houses at night and kill or injure domestic fowl. They feed on the warm blood of victims bitten in the head or neck. Rat predation on poultry usually differs in that portions of the body may be eaten and carcasses dragged into holes or concealed locations.

I had to see it to believe it!

That is not "sucking". Not even vampire bats "suck" blood.

 

[jmc1106]

It's definitely been considered. However, I told him that I had been out in the yard (I had, just about 45 minutes before they were killed) and may have left the gate unlatched myself. That would have taken all the blame off him, but he still insisted it was latched. It's still possible, but we'll tie off the netting a lot more carefully just in case.

 

[Dutchess]

Lick, slurp, lap-up - Whatever. I guess we'll have to call a spade a spade and a shovel a shovel!

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

You might want to use 1/2" hardware cloth. With that secured overhead, nothing should be able to get in.

 

[horsejody]

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I live in Nebraska too. Coons can and do hunt in the day. A baby coon can get into many places. It could be a small coon, a small possum, rats, weasel or mink.

 

[jmc1106]

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I live in Nebraska too. Coons can and do hunt in the day. A baby coon can get into many places. It could be a small coon, a small possum, rats, weasel or mink.

Thank you! I tried looking online to find if we had weasles, and couldn't seem to establish if we did or didn't. I'm thinking more and more that our gate got left unlatched. Our dog would have gone nuts with another animal in the yard...unless it was one of her buddies. But we'll tighten things up and cross fingers too.

 

[horsejody]

Don't write off rats either. They are more than happy to chew on the back end of a live animal. You can put black footed ferrets right there with the weasels too. Don't believe the myth that they are so rare as to not be a problem. The government kindly reintroduced them to the area. My barn cats have killed them before. They have killed a mink before too. When it comes to small predator control, a good cat is excellent.

 

[jmc1106]

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Ha ha, we have a 14 year old barn cat who will just sit there and watch the mice walk by. It's probably time to start looking for his apprentice.

 

[dacjohns]

There are weasels and mink in Nebraska.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/mna/image_info.cfm?species_id=188