what would kill ducks for sport?

[Lingold85]

My husband came home from work yesterday around 645 pm (still daylight) to find 4 of my 7 ducks in a pen dead with no visible injuries.....the pen had poultry netting over the top and we even have the gate covered as much a possible....a dog couldn't get in at all..there was only a little blood on truffles my buffs neck but not a mark on Quackers ( silver Appleyard male) or Daisy my pekin or Ethel my black Swedish......Only three survived.........what would just kill them and not eat anything.....everything I read is contradicting because there was no blood just my babies lying there..and it was daylight....I need to wrap my head around this as I am devastated but I also have a mallard pen and one other pen with a few other ducks and I need to protect them...... thanks for any advice it's really appreciated....

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Most likely culprits would be a weasel or mink.
That's their modus operandi.
ETA
And they can get into 1" holes.

 

[Lingold85]

Thank you....I am leaning that way and am truly devastated.....we learned the hard way about raccoons but at least he killed for a reason.....I'm sick about this because they were just dead.....very fresh happened yesterda......can they just snap their necks? These are big ducks will it come back?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

They will come back until all the ducks are dead.
They just bite the neck and drink a little blood, then go to the next bird.
I lost 7 flocks of chickens to mink in a week about this time last summer. It started with them taking all the baby chicks foraging with mother hens during the day. Then each night they got into another coop and killed every bird in there.
I was devastated and it set my breeding program back years.

 

[Lingold85]

Oh wow I'm really sorry that happened to you......can we trap it? I am actually away on vacation with our daughter and got the news yesterday.....he secured the remaining three in a coup with the small metal wire no chicken wire but the real expensive stuff.....it's covered with that too and bottom......and my husband is building a bigger one for all the other ducks just like that one.....what did you do? I hope that works....is there a reason it didn't kill the other two and the goose in the pen? You have given me some relief so thank you for helping me......any thing else you can recommend

 

[ChickenCanoe]

You just have to close off any opening over 3/4". You can trap but trapping is very difficult without live animals for bait.
#110 conibear body trap is best. Snares work too.
http://www.flemingtraps.com/duke-11...HLvPLtl7K3sOu5Ioaf_E9rf1PyE9OorjgkaAiOD8P8HAQ


It actually started from Wal-Mart building a store upstream from my house. They cut about 80 acres of forest along coldwater creek displacing the mink. My family had been raising chickens within a mile of here since the 1800s and last year was the first time we ever had a mink attack. I went out in the middle of the night to check on things and looked in a window expecting to see a rooster and hens but there was only a mink on the roost looking at me. I shot and killed it but that wasn't the only one. I bought a baby monitor and the next night I woke to thrashing. I ran out to the coop and found a mink killing chickens. I tried to stomp it as it ran past but it escaped. That building has a concrete floor but no sill at the door. There was a 1" gap under the door. That day I attached boards to the bottom inside of the doors so it meets the concrete when closed. Then covered that with sheet metal.
Another building that has kept raccoons out all these years can't keep mink out. I quit using that building and have to completely redesign it.
I've gone through all the other buildings to make sure there are no gaps.

 

[Lingold85]

I just can't believe it was daylight...I hope what we do helps at the present moment it could easily get into the other pens so we have to work fast because I am scared it will be back today.....why ducks over chickens?possibly how easy it was to get into the duck pens....we live on 23 acres close to Greensboro and we are secluded......the geese were supposed to help and maybe that is why Shelly and Onyx my blue sweedish lived because we have Lucy and African goose with them?