You cannot believe this! !@#$% predators

[Mrs. K]

It is coming down to the fall, and I really needed to adjust my flock. I have a mature rooster, and 3 juveniles approaching 4 months. Coyotes got one rooster, I just can't free range with these short days, and my working.

I go down this morning, catch the first rooster, and dispatch him, leaving him on a makeshift pallet table. I go to catch the second rooster, I miss a couple of times, everything is flying and upset, catch him. As I come out of the run, I see that the first one is not on the table, but I am not worried, I just think he has fallen off.

He is GONE!!! He was a white rooster, I looked and looked, there is no way I could not have seen him, and there is no way he walked anywhere! Good grief, not only am I feeding the predators, now I am butchering for them too! I am surprised that the !@#!%$#^ did ask me to pluck the feathers!

Good grief!

Mrs K

 

[Folly's place]

Sad but very funny post! Could it have been one of your pets? I'd be upset too. Mary

 

[bobbi-j]

I am surprised that the !@#!%$#^ did ask me to pluck the feathers!

Good grief!

Mrs K

Give it time, that'll be next. I'm having a bit of a coyote problem here, too. At least I've deduced that those are the problem. It was between them and the dog, but I have found no carcasses, and what few feathers I've found all follow the same pattern behind our grain bins to the field that's right next to our building sites.
I lost 5 POL pullets in 2 days - just a week after I'd gotten them, right after I started letting them free range - and my oldest rooster (a year old) this week after DH accidentally locked him out of the coop. (He was being helpful, saw birds roosting so shut the coop early. He doesn't count heads first) I guess the only bonus is, it solves my dilemma of which rooster to keep. My older one was a known factor - good to the hens, not people aggressive. His son from our first hatch this year is much prettier, also good to his pullets, and not people aggressive.

 

[donrae]

Is anyone else thinking of headless rooster jokes? Too close to Halloween, if you ask me. Or zombie chickens?

I'll tell you, my honey would love to make the rounds of my byc friends and shoot coyotes. That brazen in broad daylight is pretty bold.

 

[bobbi-j]

Is anyone else thinking of headless rooster jokes? Too close to Halloween, if you ask me. Or zombie chickens?

I'll tell you, my honey would love to make the rounds of my byc friends and shoot coyotes. That brazen in broad daylight is pretty bold.

 

[Mrs. K]

At Donrae

What really burns me, is this morning, I had two hunters come in, wanting to call coyotes, but they did not realize that they had crossed the county lines, and did not have the right permit........ I wish I had told them that AFTER.

Mrs K

 

[Mrs. K]

Bobbi-j - I feel your pain, I lost the third rooster, and my favorite pol EE hen. @#$^%$^&^&^. They nearly always take my favorite hens, but I was not fond of that roo.

One of the goals of butchering the roosters today, was to get my numbers down, I am not letting mine out of lock down now until the end of January. The days are too short, and with the time change, it will be toooooo close to dark when I get home.

I just could not believe it.

Mrs K

 

[bobbi-j]

That is pretty brazen. I think around here, you can shoot them in any county. Do you have a specific season for them? They can be taken any time here.

The slough where I think "my" coyotes are living is about 300 yards across a plowed bean field from our building site. The beans were still standing when the pullets were taken - not too hard, I would think, for them to sneak up and pull a grab-and-run. I hadn't had time to get attached to the pullets, but I did like the rooster. I was thinking of hanging on to him just out of some sense of loyalty, if you will. He'd been here the longest, he stayed out of my way, was fun to watch around his hens. At least the replacement is prettier. By the time I'm done thinning the flock, I will be down to about 9 hens. I'm giving some thought to keeping one more rooster just as a backup. Depends on how things go. The spare is an all-white EE cross. I wasn't even sure it is a rooster as I've never heard him crow, never seen him show any attention to the hens, and never seen a squabble between him and the now-head-rooster. They were hatched and raised together, so maybe they have things worked out and he knows his place. The only reason I'm thinking rooster right now is size (same size as the alpha), longer, droopy tail feathers, and the hackle feathers seem right as far as I can tell. If my pullets are getting too stressed, the white one will have to go, too.

 

[Mrs. K]

I think that EE roosters are slow to develop. But a good friend told me look at the comb, 3 rows of bumps = a roo. And a white EE is almost always a rooster. Mine was white too, but that dirty yellowish white.

I kept the old boy, not because he is a great rooster, very low fertility, but because he is good at raising sons. White birds I think are more susceptible to daytime predators. Right now I have 5 mostly BO chicks, maybe a good rooster in that bunch.

I am thinking of going with more of the BO's, getting some of colored ones...... well one thing with coyotes, there is often room to try something else! I am down to one laying hen, one broody, and 2 POL EE, and one POL White rock. Thank God, I froze eggs this summer! The pullets are 4months old, don't really expect them to lay until January.

 

[aart]

I'll be d@mned!!