I have a mystery (at least to me).
I put out a rat trap last night and it disappeared. I made sure all the chickens and ducks were safely in the coop, placed out a trap with PB and put a corner under a cinder block to prevent the crafty rats from flipping it.
This morning I went out and one of my dogs ran out in the yard and picked up his dead rat to show me - good dog, Bo. A girl, too, so he just killed hundreds of Portland city rats!
The dogs cannot get into the chicken area, and the rat showed no signs of being caught in the trap. Hoping maybe I got two in one night, I went into the chicken yard and...no trap! I've had a trapped rat get dragged a few feet away and eaten by other rats before, but not this time. Gone...not in the chicken yard, not in my backyard, nowhere....
I live in Portland proper, so the most common predators would be rats, possums, occasional raccoons and pets. Maybe an owl? A friend up the street thinks she's heard one outside her window....longshot. My chicken yard enclosure is a combination of my house, 6' ft wooden gate, and garage, my neighbor's garage, three feet of 6' wooden fence between the two garages, and 6' chain link kennel fencing. No sign of anything digging under the chain link. The gate is over concrete. The 3 feet of fencing is behind bamboo, hard to get to to see, but no huge holes. Most likely it came over the wooden fence or the roof (or maybe the chain link fence - but the dogs patrol the yard at night, usually anything that comes in gets killed).
What type of predator would, and has the ability to carry off a rat and a trap (I'm assuming something was caught in the trap for it to be gone), most likely over a fence or up a wall? I need to be able to deal wiith this predator in addition to the rats, especially as fall and winter are coming.
Puzzled in Portland.
I put out a rat trap last night and it disappeared. I made sure all the chickens and ducks were safely in the coop, placed out a trap with PB and put a corner under a cinder block to prevent the crafty rats from flipping it.
This morning I went out and one of my dogs ran out in the yard and picked up his dead rat to show me - good dog, Bo. A girl, too, so he just killed hundreds of Portland city rats!
I live in Portland proper, so the most common predators would be rats, possums, occasional raccoons and pets. Maybe an owl? A friend up the street thinks she's heard one outside her window....longshot. My chicken yard enclosure is a combination of my house, 6' ft wooden gate, and garage, my neighbor's garage, three feet of 6' wooden fence between the two garages, and 6' chain link kennel fencing. No sign of anything digging under the chain link. The gate is over concrete. The 3 feet of fencing is behind bamboo, hard to get to to see, but no huge holes. Most likely it came over the wooden fence or the roof (or maybe the chain link fence - but the dogs patrol the yard at night, usually anything that comes in gets killed).
What type of predator would, and has the ability to carry off a rat and a trap (I'm assuming something was caught in the trap for it to be gone), most likely over a fence or up a wall? I need to be able to deal wiith this predator in addition to the rats, especially as fall and winter are coming.
Puzzled in Portland.
