- Mar 26, 2010
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I am getting some Plymouth Rock chicks in about a week, and am trying to take efforts to protect them from whatever did my last flock in two years ago.
We've had chickens for a number of years with no incidents, despite coyotes, raccoons and opossums on our property. But one week after the new chicks arrived, we went out to feed them and discovered a horrible mess. Little disemboweled bodies everywhere! They were locked in the coop, but it sits on the ground. A small, half-dollar size hole had been dug under the wire barrier I had used to separate them from the older chickens.
My reading on predators says that mink and weasels just bite the head off or suck the blood. Opossums will make a mess, but this little, bitty hole certainly was not 'possum size!
Any thoughts on what rodent-size killer likes to make a wreck of things? Only two actual bodies were missing, the rest had been ripped open and flung all over the pen.
I'll have the new chicks in my very secure horse trailer until they are old enough for a chicken tractor. Then I am hoping I can avoid another slaughter by running an electric wire around the bottom about an inch above ground. Would that be high enough to zap a digger as it closes in to make a tunnel?
Lisa in Ontario
We've had chickens for a number of years with no incidents, despite coyotes, raccoons and opossums on our property. But one week after the new chicks arrived, we went out to feed them and discovered a horrible mess. Little disemboweled bodies everywhere! They were locked in the coop, but it sits on the ground. A small, half-dollar size hole had been dug under the wire barrier I had used to separate them from the older chickens.
My reading on predators says that mink and weasels just bite the head off or suck the blood. Opossums will make a mess, but this little, bitty hole certainly was not 'possum size!
Any thoughts on what rodent-size killer likes to make a wreck of things? Only two actual bodies were missing, the rest had been ripped open and flung all over the pen.
I'll have the new chicks in my very secure horse trailer until they are old enough for a chicken tractor. Then I am hoping I can avoid another slaughter by running an electric wire around the bottom about an inch above ground. Would that be high enough to zap a digger as it closes in to make a tunnel?
Lisa in Ontario
