We have been nearly wiped out of our poultry! Over the past few weeks we have lost over half our flock due to predators on the nearby woods. We have witnessed an opossum killing two chickens, the power outage during early storms killed several as chicks (because the heat lamp went out). We have also seen a fox and some stray cats around.
On the first of May we had 44 chicks and now we're down to 14! We've also lost 3 ducks. Josh went out this morning and found a dead duck with its head pulled through the chain link. Gross.
With each missing bird we've tried to make the chicken coop and run a little more secure. We are considering putting hotwire around the top, but that wouldn't stop everything. I'm not sure what our plan is just yet.
when i was growing up, we had a little house that had a tiny hole in the side of it (besides the front door) for chickens that had a slider fastened with a string that ran over the top of the rafters and a plywood? panel that simply lifted up or down when you pulled the string, so the chickens could get in or out, but nothing else, so you shooed them back in at night into the coop and released the panel so they were shut in at night. they did all their running during the day.
ReplyDeletein case you can't figure it out because i know it looks weird, it's Jill http://lilmouse.blogsite.org posting as lilmouse sometimes and jill sometimes. sorry!
ReplyDeleteOh, my.. sorry about your chickens and ducks! Many years ago when we had poultry, I went out to feed one morning and all 3 of my ducks' heads were... gone. Pulled through the fence. Just like a horror story. We had to end up shutting all the chickens up tight every night. And then one day a hawk came in and killed the rooster during broad day light! It is a little disheartening, but hang in there. I can't wait to get back into chickens myself! -tammy p.s. your little guy looks so grown up... what a cutie!
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