Last week, I found ANOTHER dead chicken outside, this time the FOX (or whatever it was) had the nerve to just remove the head, the other two at least it ate the insides too!
Then I looked around the house twice and saw NO other chickens! NONE!!
we HAD 7 as of a week ago, then on Bjorn’s birthday we found a dead one, then another two days later and now this one! and the last 4 were just GONE!!!
I told Dan when he got home Friday, we went outside to look for them again or at least remnants of them and THEN we saw this!!
all 4 were BACK!!! they must have hid really well from whatever predator it was…. including me earlier in the day.
So then it was time to move the coop and build a run!!
Hubby build this Saturday and they LOVE it!
Still needs a door for us to get in there, but at least now they are safe!
So the ones that are left are
Cheddar (Yellow)
Kimchi (red)
Peppa (or smoke) – black
and Trump (black)
Im pretty sure the predator that go the one without a head is a raccoon. If you have one they are complete jerks and will try to get your chickens in the run (that wire may be spaced large enough for the chickens to put their heads out of and then the raccoon(s) will do that again. They kill just to kill and don't always eat what they kill. We trap and shoot them as once they find your chickens they are relentless! Good luck!
Raccoons are amazing in what they can do. Your run is raised, hope your wire goes about a foot down into the soil. We have foxes that will crawl and dig under the wire. We had a container in our cat run, I changed where I kept it and put it near the chain link. In the morning, they had unscrewed the top and reached in taking out all the cat food from the out side. We have all sorts of wild life living near Yosemite Nat. park. Recently spotted are mountain lions and bob cats. Lots of coyotes, and caught a red fox standing up on his back legs and eating the grapes from the vines. Birds take more than the 10% we would like to allot them. Love chickens, there is some good info on the net. Love your chicken house. Good luck.
So sorry about your chicken deaths it has to be hard on you and your children. I hope you and your husband are able to make the chickens safe, before any more die.I am in California where we don't have green grass just dry grass or dirt. Your grass looks so lush and I bet the chickens love it, although they do need a bit of dirt to roll and dust themselves. My grandparents had chickens on their ranch they had 30 or so a huge coop that they moved occasionally with the tractor . They ordered the chicks and the mailman delivered them. They had big white hens , which layed white eggs I am sure they sold the eggs as that would have allowed them to have money regularly (their income was from walnuts and prunes which have a harvest and sell the crop time) I know one year their was no market for walnuts ( or the amount of money they could get for their crop was too low to be worthwhile) so they didn't sell they worked through that winter shelling the walnuts themselves and selling the walnut meats. My grandfather used a hammer to crack the shells and he and my grandmother and anyone who was there took the nut meats out, the way the shells where cracked we were able to get mostly halves and we put pieces in one place and halves in another…I am sure it was to get a higher price for the halves.They had a wood burning cooking stove in the kitchen as well as an electric stove. The walnut shells are wood so they used the shells to burn in the wood burning stove.they worked long hours Colleen
I follow your chicken adventure as well as all your sewing with great interest. I do feel sorry for your misfortune with the chicken, so here is some advice:From experience, I know some of the predators dig underneath the fence to get in. Did you extend the fence into the ground?Chérine (from West Australia)
Bummer on the lost chickens but I'm glad the last four showed up. Hopefully the new chicken pen will keep them safe