[funkyfish]

Lost a correctly coloured Cream Legbar, had high hopes for her as have a very nice boy. Have been breeding and buying in CLB eggs for two years to get such a good  example, and something ate her!


Also had 2x ducks and another 2 hens taken/eaten. All that is left is a skull (with a hole in it!) and wings. Could it be birds of pray?

[chrismahon]

Not a fox Funkyfish, as they eat the head and neck first and leave the rest for next day. Hole in the skull sounds like a Mink bite. Birds of prey will eat as much of the flesh as possible as they can't easily take off with the body. Mink will leave the rubbish.


Sorry to hear you have lost all that hard work. Hopefully you still have the parents.

[goosepimple]

Mink or otter - we have an otter 'problem' (I do like them) here eating our ducks, otter have seen off the mink here, also herons a big 'problem' (like them too).

[jaykay]

Stoats too?

[funkyfish]

Now have had 5 birds eaten- just the heads! Think it something of the weasel/stoat family :0(


No idea how to keep them out as am using electric netting as it is. All I can do it put them in arks which seems a shame, but free ranging only seems to get them eaten!


So I am selling my trio of Cream legbars- correctly coloured as they are to good to be eaten!

[chrismahon]

It sounds like a fox with just heads gone Funkyfish. They can easily jump an electric net.

[funkyfish]

Have 2 strands of electric strand on to as well so its shoulder hight, damn them! I think arks in their electrified pens are the olny way to go :0(, ok they can still dig under but it may help.

[Brijjy]

I've had the same thing happen too. Definitely not foxes as they are being taken from inside the main fox-proof pen and from an ark. The biggest thing that's been eaten is full grown Dutch bantams, nothing bigger. I've lost 6 adults and 4 chicks. I've only found one body and that had holes all over it including the skull. I was thinking not mink but maybe weasels? Whatever it is, I haven't seen it and the rest of the chooks don't make a racket like they do if a fox attacks. We're also surrounded by alot of birds of prey.....

[funkyfish]

Same here- the other chickens were not freaked out like they are in a fox attack. All the bodies were found in long grass as if they had been ambushed?

[Steph Hen]

My neighbour years and years ago told me she couldn't figure out what was killing some of her hens - they were headless, and then ragged, killed through the day time inside a complete wire pen... Eventually watched a fox sit by the pen and a hen put its head through the wire = fox bit it off! The realised the rest of damage was done by other hens pecking at the body.  (Thinking outside the 'box' (pen?))

Cats sometimes like chewing skulls of birds I've found. Small mustalids like killing by back of neck, but would be unlikely to put a hole in their skull preferentually over other softer areas.

I'd set traps if I were you, some live capture, maybe fen traps (in tunnels for small mustalids/rats), increase electric wire componant, consider a camera so that you can find out what you're up against? How about sprinkling a boundary of soft sand around the outside of the pen so you can read off some paw prints and find out the entry points? I keep traps set all the time around my hens and have caught a few interested parties (rats, ferrets, ferrel cats) before they've had a chance to do any damage... touch wood!

[funkyfish]

Thanks for the suggestions!


I'm going to increase the hight of the top stand of electric. The main fence isn't electified as the grass grows so  damn quickly and the sgeep graze in the same field so don't want to weed kill it, it just shorts all the  time even with plastic feed sack pegged down under it. So have electric wire 2 strands a bit away from the fence, but will put one high up to stop anything jumping over- our Collie cross can jump it so I guess a fox could jump in.


Could it be fox cubs play hunting as it was the smaller, younger birds killed in the very long, thick grass part of the pen.
I want to give them as good a life as I can- 20 chickens free range in 200m pens. It cost us a lot in 2x 100m nets per pen (we have 3 pens). Wish Id put in standard goat netting and then electric fenced the outside- never mind!


Am going to invest in as big arks as we can build and just put a few birds in each as not being eaten by predators is one of their 5 freedoms as well. Just need to find a balance.

[chrismahon]

Seen a fox clear a 5' 6" wall with about a foot to spare FF. So make it as high as possible.

[in the hills]

I've had the fox take a hen from a group and coming back for a second ..... when I spotted him. I couldn't believe that the other hens were carrying on pecking around. No commotion, no noise ....     Couldn't understand it.


Think foxy doesn't so much jump but runs up fences. Difficult to keep out when he is determined.

[Brijjy]

In my case I'm pretty sure it's a polecat/ferret that's killing my birds. Definitely not a fox as it surely would have had some free roaming muscovy drakes that sleep by the edge of the pen on the ground, very easy pickings. I saw something this morning that I'm about 85% sure was a polecat or ferret but it ran away very quickly. How to go about trapping it now

[Steph Hen]

I have trapped several ferrel ferrets using a cage trap designed for catching rabbits.

Of course once you've got the animal you then have to decide what to do with it. There seems to be a lot of ferrel/lost ferrets around Angus. I think I've had five in the last five years. These have all turned out to be lovely beasts which could be taken out of the cage, didn't bite and were rehomed.

Surely a polecat would also have taken the drakes first? I wouldn't rule out foxy yet - as per my pervious post - I would buy several different traps, look on Youtube for how to set them and get them all up around the hen's pen. Adapt any larger traps so that they can take smaller animals. My fox and rabbit traps have small enough wire, but when the door slides shut there's still about 1" gap between it and the cage wall. Enough for stoat, small ferret to squeeze out of - so I wedge a strip of wood there ~and check the door still triggers smoothly!

(DO not set cage traps inside the pen! - I once had a big cage fox trap set - one hen went inside, and another must have been at the door when the trap triggered! She had to be PTS.)

Look up fen traps on YouTube. Make sure they are safely positioned. Good luck.