In the past thirteen years of breeding and raising poultry we have had experiences with predators like coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, opossums, skunks, dogs, hawks, owls and snakes. A well trained Great Pyrenese guard dog will do a great job of keeping the furry and feathered predators away, but the snakes has his way of slithering into the brooder houses while the dogs are away. Presently we have lost 29 head of our last two hatches of 2007 to a predator that has managed to out do both the dogs and us.
The birds were just vanishing without a trace of feathers, tracks or any kind of clue as to what was taking them. Labor Day, while off work I happened to be walking by our pond just at the right time to see where the birds were disappearing. The pond was constructed in the fall of 1994, to be used to irrigate the vegetable garden. It did have, some water snakes, several years ago, that managed to find their way into the brooder houses of chicks under two weeks of age. This is the first time that it has harbored large chicken thieves! A very nice wheaten pullet that I had been admiring and considering caging for our district show in Shawnee was being dragged on top of the shallow water into the deeper water. Immediately I grabbed the dip net (used for catching chickens) and dipped her out but missed the snapping turtle that had torn her neck half off and drown her.
Later That day Angela returned home and we seined three snapping turtles out of the reservoir. One was huge and the other two were small. I thought we had won the battle until 2 days later three more small snapping turtles appeared in the reservoir. I set some throw lines in an attempt to catch them. Saturday evening the 29th bird was floating in the shallow water. I dipped him out to find his entire head eaten off his body. We seined the pond again Sunday morning before church, but caught none. We purchased 2 more 10 feet seins, tied them all together to have a sein long enough to reach across what water was still in the reservoir, since it has been pumped so low, watering the fall vegetables. Three more trips across the reservoir but no snapping turtles were captured. Apparently they all left during the night. I feel that the excessive frequent rains in late spring and early summer caused the snapping turtles to move into our reservoir. Our place in near Indian Creek and the back water of Lake Kiowa, which has 500 acres under water. We will keep a close watch on the reservoir and lines set in it. I hope this info, helps others whose chickens have access to ground water, to be on the alert for snapping turtles. It has been another learning experience for us. Presently there are still 117 head in our fourth and fifth hatches, even though the turtles consumed almost 20% of them.
