Predators

[Bearpaw]

Hi ALL,

Seems like predators are invading our poultry pens.
I lost two of my best blue hens. I have a six foot high block wall around my back 1/2 acre. A coyote I\'m sure. So we let our German sheperd loose out there. She won\'t jump the chicken fence it\'s to high. She dislikes cats, other dogs and coyotes.
I understand some breeders lost to racoons ect.
Wesly Wyche told me in an E-Mail that predators wiped him out. Must be all the stormy weather this year.
bearpaw :

[cedarpondfarm]

I got kicked off before I could post - hope it doesn\'t come through twice.

We also have a coyote problem here in rural Florida panhandle.  Our intensely hot summers require hen houses be open on all 4 sides so I used chain link fence instead of chicken wire.  I also extended it about 12 inches into the ground to prevent stray dogs from digging under.  My birds are free range in the daytime and shut up at night.

This is my first time with outside chicken wire covered breeding pens so I\'m using electric fencing around the 200\' by 200\' hen yard - but only at night - don\'t want fried chickens.  The hot box is rated to charge through 60 miles of wet weeds so it should knock his coyote socks off.    

[Bearpaw]

 

Hi,
Cedarpond,
It should do the trick.
Bearpaw

[Paul]

Predators are one of the fanciers worst problems.  It seems almost everything likes chicken-even me!  We use two Great Pyrnes Guard Dogs to watch over our birds and goats.  They do an excellent job once they get trained.  In 2007 we had several (29 head) to disappear before I found out what was getting them.  There was no trace or evidence of anything, plus it had to get past the dogs.  Past experience with predators, aquired before purchasing the first pup: coyotes will grab one leaving a few feathers at the attack site and carry it off to eat.  Bob cats leave a trail of feathers and usually carry it only a short distance.  A hawk eats the bird\'s breast and leaves the mess at the kill site.  A skunk bites the head and drinks the blood leaves a mess at the kill site.  A raccoon & opossum eats the head and part of the body leaving the mess at the kill site.


I finally saw the predator in action on Labor Day during the early afternoon.  It turned out to be a large snapping turtle.  We have a small irrigation pond near our brooder houses.  The young growing birds are raised free range.  They love to play in the shallow water around the pond edges.

[bryngyld]

Rats wiped out my whole grower pen last year.  It\'s fairly easy to tell it\'s them, they don\'t even scurry away until you are right there.  I had to make 1 by 1/2 inch wire cages for grow pens.  The young rats would get in 1 x 2 inch wire.  They would also pull chicks through the 1/2 in wire, so I had to make wooden brooders.  Rats have been absolutely my worst predator yet.  I\'ve had an owl take 3, a weasel took two, a raccoon took one, dogs wiped out a dozen, but the rats did in 100s!

[cedarpondfarm]

The one that had me stumped for a long time, when some of my older birds used to roost high in the pecan trees, was a huge great horned owl.  He didn\'t leave a single feather.  Each morning there was just one less bird.  I sat in the hen house one night for 3 hours before I finally saw him and heard him hoot.  So I started shutting up those chickens at night and he eventually went else where.  

The very large pair of red tailed hawks that winter here every year snagged one pullet in the middle of the day before the rest of the flock learned to run for the bushes.  I am the last one to see or hear the hawks but those chickens know exactly where they are.  I haven\'t lost any birds to that pair since.
   
How is it that hungry critters can pick out our best hen?