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Post by heidihi on Mar 11, 2011 9:19:36 GMT -5
I had a healthy flock of beautiful productive chickens ...then there was the great horned owl and his wife who had a lovely chicken dinner (honestly that I did not mind ..having GH owls nesting here I think is wonderful ...we have barred and GH and they eat the vermin and are just magnificant ..and they only took on chicken..then tere was the fox ...that was less enchanting but still they are creatures we rarely see and he only took one ...then came the raccoons and honestly I am disgusted and devastated at the mess they make and they just killed the chickens did not even bother to consume them...the opossums ..well they stomp my eggs and make a huge mess but so far I have not killed a chicken I am down to 3 chickens ..bummed out and not sure I want to do this again we were going to try some ducks this year since the drakes do not crow I could let them reproduce ..but while I love the idea of wildlife in my garden this is totally crushing ..the money ..the time and the love we put into our flock and the eggs and meat we recieved in reture.... my grandson wants to go get more chickens..he named them all "Sprinkles" and now there are only 3 "Sprinkles" left I am not sure what I should do .. I adore the serenity of the flock and they are great natural tillers . we eat a lot of eggs I am just really not happy and wanted to spew ..I am sorry but now we have 4 live traps in the yard I adore the serenity of gardening with the chickens chatting around me ...argh argh argh we put them in a tight coop at night ..these attacks happen during the day! (owl aside that one happened when we did not get the chickens in one night ..our fault) we have to get RID of those raccoons they really piss me offthe fox well it hit and ran I have not seen it since..it was a beautiful if not distructive creature I dont know what to do right now I feel defeated  thanks for the vent |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Mar 11, 2011 10:49:58 GMT -5
Life has occurred in your garden. Wait a few hours and indulge yourself in a few extra hugs with your grandson and anyone else sufficiently pleasing nearby. You might even want to cry a little bit. Crying is a great thing. THEN, make your decisions. Buy or incubate more birdies? Trap the coons/possums? What do I do with the trapped coons/possums? (we trap, shot, put in terra preta pit) What about the owls? I, meanwhile, will feel great empathy for you and look forward to hearing about how you decide to move forward. By the way... when you eat all those eggs... do have any serious... ummm... consequences? P.S. You won't feel defeated for long!  |
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Post by ozarklady on Mar 11, 2011 19:33:34 GMT -5
Don't give up!
But don't trust opossums, we go after them as bad or worse than raccoons.
When, I have a chicken missing: Owl, hawk, eagle, coyote, or fox is the culprit.
When I have a chicken that is missing its innards... a raccoon is lurking about, a headless chicken is a sure indicator of a opossum, and a dead flatten chicken and all the eggs broken, or gone, is a black snake.
Yep, chickens like rabbits are food for many animals and reptiles.
Ducks do not fare any better. Baby ducks even get ate by the fish and turtles in the pond, and the baby fish, get eaten by the turtles and ducks, and wild animals.
Best bet, is lock them up securely at night, and let them out at dawn.
And place shelters that they can run under when a hawk or eagle is after them during the day.
And beyond that... you just have to be vigilant and determined to catch some of the varmints.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 11, 2011 23:33:34 GMT -5
But don't trust opossums, I can assure you that I will never trust an opossum!!!! <shudder> It gives me the heeby-jeebies just to think about them. |
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Post by ozarklady on Mar 12, 2011 11:27:59 GMT -5
Oh the don't trust opossums was in response to o.p. comment that they make a mess, stomp eggs, but had not yet killed a chicken. They will!
They are gross, they just remind me of big gross rats!
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Post by garnetmoth on Mar 13, 2011 10:19:00 GMT -5
Sorry about your troubles. If you can trap for the bad guys, and make some security changes, it may be worth seeing how your 3 do for a little while, then adding when you are comfortable with it. we had a really bad raid in TN, and due to the setup, we just gave up the remaining super survivor chicken, and now have a much more secure coop. When we see evidence of bad guys, we live trap.
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Post by heidihi on Mar 13, 2011 14:56:06 GMT -5
thanks you guys..I needed the empathy!!! I am sure I will go back into the same crazy scenerio because frankly.. my yard seems very empty right now!!! opossums are like giant nasty rats covered with fleas I find them disgusting!!! I hope I did not give the impression I thought otherwise ..the fox was cool the owls are cool the opossums and raccoons are the worst..the opossums walk right into the traps the raccoons were too big for the traps we had
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Post by johno on Mar 13, 2011 22:00:00 GMT -5
Whenever I lose a hen to predation, or whatever, it is a sad and frustrating moment. After this moment, I consider that the remaining flock and any chicks they produce are that much better adapted to this location. This cheers me up.
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Post by wildseed57 on Mar 15, 2011 16:11:37 GMT -5
As a boy I lived on a small farm and chickens and ducks were part of what we lived on, one way or another. Feral cats, possems and coons along with foxes and Owls were always kept at a very long distance. Some were looked at as food and if they got close that is what happened. Owls were never killed unless they got to agressive and added puppies or even small dogs to their menue, then they dissipeared. Live trapping with the Idea of moving them away some where will only work if you really move them far far away. Trapping and disposing works best, but as one leaves another will, at some point take its place, so you need to keep that in mind. I watched as a big hawk took one of my beagle puppies and I was very sad for a long time, but you need to watch your other animals along with your chickens. Feral cats can become a bad problem fast just as stray dogs can take out chickens pretty fast . I hate to say it, but .10 cents worth of lead can solve a lot of problems and in the case of raccoons, here in the south they are often served with BBQ sauce. I feel sorry for your loss of your chickens they can be as nice as a puppy at times although rosters and brooding Hens with chicks can give you the run for your life at times.
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Post by heidihi on Mar 16, 2011 7:52:32 GMT -5
we had a while with the dogs running round where the raccoons especially stayed far away ..but they have obviously gotten over that!
I tried eating raccoon one time it was kind of awful but it could have been how it was prepared..I also have a few cookbooks that have opossum recipes..on is for a stuffed opossum ..the stuffing sounds good... while I will eat just about anything ..so will my old man ...we just can not bring ourselves to eating that giant rat! Maybe if the economy gets bad enough or when I reture into poverty we will change our minds .... maybe if someone prepared it for me (I have a friend from the south who swears it is good with gravy ..but he swears you put gravy on roadkill and it is good so who knows if he means it or not!) ...if you put it on a plate I would try it but the prep would be awful they are hideous things and you have to hang them for a few days and well I am not there yet!
I am a waste not want not person but opossums and raccoons are not a menu item here yet .. never know! I may get that pissed off!
..I am going to have my helper kid put dog poo around the fence line..I did that one year and it really helped! I did not have a death all summer when we did that!
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bertiefox
gardener
There's always tomorrow!
Posts: 236
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Post by bertiefox on Mar 16, 2011 12:57:47 GMT -5
We've never lost a chicken to a fox since we moved to France, but then a few weeks ago six unsupervised hunting dogs turned up during lunchtime and destroyed half of our flock of eight birds! We managed to grab three of the dogs and cage them, and as they had telephone numbers on their collars we were able to phone the hunt. They did compensate us for the price of the birds but not for all the eggs we have lost, nor all the hassle.
If our dogs wander it is called dog straying and they can be caught and impounded. When a hunt does this with half a pack running amuck, it's just seen as 'country life'.
At least with racoons and owls it's part of nature. Hunting with packs of dogs should be much more controlled.
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Post by heidihi on Mar 17, 2011 8:25:03 GMT -5
I am so sorry about your loss that is just horrid and I would be furious if a pack of hunting dogs on a hunt even came into my yard ..but that is here I guess it is more culturally acceptable there?
I think dog hunts should be controled to the point of them not existing to be honest ..there is a difference between a hunting dog to fetch your bird a person shot and a pack of dogs on a chase ..I do not get it and probably at this late venture I never will
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Post by grunt on Mar 17, 2011 10:43:50 GMT -5
Heidi: I don't get the whole aristocracy thing myself = but then I'm a highland Scot by descent, and not genetically inclined to care much for them.
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Post by johno on Mar 17, 2011 15:55:25 GMT -5
I sympathize with you about the loose hunting dogs. But I must admit, it brings back memories of hunting white tail deer with beagles when I was a kid (with adult supervision, of course). I wish the (human) population was still sparse enough to do that around here without stepping on anyone's toes. It was a real blast, and the dogs liked it even more than we did, I think. The deer, not so much...
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Post by garnetmoth on Mar 17, 2011 23:10:42 GMT -5
my husband is a biologist and is really leery of eating raccoon, they can carry rabies and if you cut yourself processing you can get it.
id eat squirrel before id try possum, and id probably go for pigeon before either.
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