What kind of chicken is this, laying eggs in my yard? UPDATE!

[SillyChicken]

That needs to be made into "chicken" soup! And YES they will eat birds... they're real bad when it comes to ducklings. They are an opportunistic hunter... anything that comes within snapping distance, is dead.

We'll remove any snappers we find. (2 so far this year) We have a 2 acre pond thats full of them.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Very cool! But they can be NASTY! I tried to use a branch to move one out of the road and you'd think it would have taken my arm off if I didn't jump. You'd expect them to be slow on land, but they can turn around really fast.

 

[TwistedSerpent]

I was talking about specificly about chickens being taken out on land, they will take anything that comes in reach in the water. There is no reason to kill something thats very unlikely to even be a threat to these animals.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

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[tammyd57]

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Well, if you make soup out of them, you should kill them first. They aren't like lobsters that get dumped in the boiling water alive.

 

[SillyChicken]

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Isn't it great that we can disagree?!

 

[TwistedSerpent]

Of course, just imagine how horribly boring the world would be if everyone did and acted and thought the same way. To me a snapper is very low on the list of threats to chickens, especially chickens that are only out when supervised. I guess I just prefer trying to live with nature instead of killing even though it might not of been an actual threat especially in this situation. I grew up around these guys as well has having kept and knowing many who have kept them and other species of turtles, not for a second would I even consider the birds in this situation at risk. A female turtle can travel a good distance to find the perfect nest, there is absolutely nothing else on her mind. It takes a lot of energy for this effort, all the while the turtle is out of water and at risk for predators. While laying eggs someone could go up and do just about anything to the turtle they really arent all there and their energy is all being focused on the task at hand. Then they bury the nest and go back home. The babies that hatch are much more at risk from the birds then the birds are to them, most wont survive anyways (usually only 2-4 from a clutch will make it at least for a few months). Got to understand snappers and turtles in general, in my opinion its not even an issue or anything I would waste time worrying about with chickens.

Of course this is coming from someone who has lived and breathed reptiles since a little kid, so their could be a little bias in there too.

 

[mjdtexan]

YouTube- Turtles kill birds (*** Now with SUBTITLES! ***)

 

[TwistedSerpent]

Yes that video has been around for a long time, once again though I have to stress its not very common at all, they are oppertunistic feeders, the turtles in that video obviuosly have adapted to taking off the pidgeons who for whatever reason are just standing there with them. Usually when there's pidgeons that are not flighty like that means there are often people around either feeding them or providing a means for food, which in turn usually means the turtles get in on the action. Again its a situation not relevant to the one posted about, I understand wanting to protect your birds of course but having more experiance with turtles then chickens it really seems like your actually digging to find reasons to kill this one when in fact nothing is actually being harmed. Goodness just let them enjoy something rarely seen by others instead of killing it and destroying the eggs because on a rare occasion turtles will eat birds. Turtles cannot eat or swallow something without being in the water, they will not travel on land to hunt, if the birds get to the edge of a pond its simple to block their access if there is reason to worry. Its a turtle, it has some pretty big physical limitations as far as stalking and hunting on land goes, and its not like your trying to outsmart a coon or anything. Think about it a little bit.

 

[AhBee01]

Today the baby turtles dug their way up, and we released them into the woods near our creek. We only helped them because we live near a road, and few people were mowing their lawns!
So far 8 have come up!