The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Bionic on August 16, 2013, 05:23:07 am
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Realised at 3am that I hadn't shut the door to the chicken coop. It was peeing down too so I decided the girls would be ok.
WRONG ....... An hour later I woke up to an almighty screech. OH and dog went out to check and one girl is missing and another traumatised.
Feeling bad now that I neglected them
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Oh what a shame! I have made it a rule that I always, always go out. If the dog barks, there's something there, so it's coat, boots and torch. Sometimes if its a nice night, I end up just going for a walk at 3 am. Mr fox and probably some smaller preds try your shed every night. They wait for you to slip up, for the door not to be quite closed or as I did years ago, for you to shut one out by mistake! It's a horrible thing, but the majority of poultry keepers I know have lost birds to wild animals at some time. Sorry to hear this though, not nice.
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:bouquet:
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:bouquet:made the mistake earlier in the year.... didn't get back from work until midnight, went to be and remembered JUST as I was going to sleep about the coop. No excuse because it is literally 30 yards from my bedroom. Lost all 4 hens... the only one that survived was the hen in the medical wing (old rabbit hutch)... horrible feeling :(
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Sorry to hear that, try not to beat yourself up too much.
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:bouquet: , not nice for you but I suppose that's nature.......I do not have to shut mine up as our garden is very secure. The fox can strike anytime, sometimes during the day so don't beat yourself up about it.
I think one of my hens is not well as she did not run to me when I took out some treats....I always feel guilty!
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I always entice my 8 girls in to their house well before dark just so I know I wont forget. It's so easy to get emerged in something else that needs doing and to let shutting up the chooks slip your mind - don't beat yourself up about it, it happens :hug: We have foxes around throughout the day at this time of year in particular - we often see them trotting across our field at 3:30pm.
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Don't beat yourself up about it, Sally. We have all done it. We are only human after all. I was very lucky that we don't usually have a fox problem but, as preveously mentioned, some people have lost hens with the same sinking gut feeling when disaster has struck. :bouquet:
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Went to let the remaining 5 out this morning and the traumatised one just came down from the coop with the others as if nothing had happened and then..................... There was the missing one strutting around the stable yard
So all girls present and correct :)
Now I am thinking that it wasn't mr fox after all but that they had had some sort of spat. Still, I won't be taking any chances in future
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2 of my hens started refusing to come back into the hut at night with the rest. I knew they were ok cos I would see them in the morning strutting about outside the pen before I let the others out. Now I haven't seen them for a while and I really think they must have been nabbed by the fox - but I keep hoping one day I will see them come out of the undergrowth with a line of chicks.
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Brilliant news - she obviously fancied a night out on the tiles!
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Great news Sally :thumbsup:
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Very relieved that you found your hen.
We have an automatic door closer on a timer which is great but as the days were getting longer and we hadn't got around to resetting the timer, the door closed before dusk.
The old hens had got in early but we had some newcomers who had just joined the flock and obviously weren't sure where to go, missed the door closing and stayed out. OH didn't check and we lost all four. Two lovely Buff Orpingtons and two lovely RIRs.
I would recommend a door closer but their coop is behind electric netting which we open each morning to let them free range and we do a head count every night now.
There is nothing worse than the feeling that I've let my livestock down in some way through and act of omission.
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:relief: ........................well that's good to hear :thumbsup:
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Went to let the remaining 5 out this morning and the traumatised one just came down from the coop with the others as if nothing had happened and then..................... There was the missing one strutting around the stable yard
So all girls present and correct :)
Now I am thinking that it wasn't mr fox after all but that they had had some sort of spat. Still, I won't be taking any chances in future
Wow, how lucky is that! :thumbsup: Like others I wasn't so lucky, all my ducks and all but one hen. Just the one slip forgetting to lower the pophole. :'( Foxes don't come here during the day as my dogs are always out in teh front paddock, but they could easily jump my four foot fence there so the new birds are in the back - pointed railway fence all round, and the 10 foot sound barrier as well. I once saw a video of an urban fox getting over a 7 to 8 foot brick wall, I think it was an urban fox that got mine as people are feeding them up in the village. :rant:
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:relief: Glad they are all OK - but you'll never not shut them in again :)
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Relief for you Sally! good news
one night I asked Tony to put ours to bed. 99% of them had gone into usual house but it seems one had gone into the broody coop as the wind had blown the door open. Now this is our spare 'isolation' or broody house and its rarely used. OH didn't think to shut the pophole on it.
Next morning feathers everywhere, my gorgeous bluebelle was gone. Next day fox returned and took 11 more as they happily pecked about their run 1.30pm in the sunshine.
Lesson I learnt was that fox always seems to return soon after one kill.
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Wow, that's great news! Super :excited:
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That's one big piece of luck there, Sally! :relief:
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Great news Sally! We can all get complacent if Mr Fox hasn't visited for a while. Im glad that the "Boys" act as guard dogs for my chooks as they never leave their sides when they are out and about. After losing a couple last year, Ive always made sure that the henhouse is shut each night, however, Blondie refuses to go in there still after a couple of months, as Jethro goes for her and injures her. I don't know what she did to upset him, probably said "No" once too often. She now sleeps in the woodbarn on top of the logs. There's nothing I can do about it, its her choice. I just keep my fingers crossed!!
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very pleased to hear they are all safe and well
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Glad they are all ok! :)
I can't recommend the automatic door opener/closer enough. I have mine on a timer to open at 7am, and close at dusk or 10pm, whichever is earlier. They aren't cheap but it pays for itself if it saves lives, and saves you having to get out of bed in the morning at the weekends :D.
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Our henhouses are in the farmyard which is quite busy all day and has 2 border collies in the run overlooking it but even so we saw a fox in the field around midday last winter when food was so scarce. Free rangers were locked in for the rest of the winter. Guinea fowl, if you've no near neighbours of the sensitive hearing variety, have excellent eyesight and will sound the alarm long before the hens see the fox. Whether or not the hens then have the sense to find a place of safety .....
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Glad they are all ok! :)
I can't recommend the automatic door opener/closer enough. I have mine on a timer to open at 7am, and close at dusk or 10pm, whichever is earlier. They aren't cheap but it pays for itself if it saves lives, and saves you having to get out of bed in the morning at the weekends :D.
this
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Blondie refuses to go in there still after a couple of months, as Jethro goes for her and injures her.
Are all your chooks named after pop groups FW? :D
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Excellent!
That was your 'free chance'. I've had a few of those too. I think they're there to remind us, that when we do think of it, we go and do it, whatever 'it' is, however inconvenient, cos next time we might not be so lucky.
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We've had a few 'free chances' as well. Went down this morning and the Gold Laced Wyandottes and Chester hadn't had their coop closed. Run was, inside a 'secure enclosure', but that's not enough.
Few months ago we decided to move the baby TNN's as the run wasn't secure at all against dogs or foxes. Went down in the morning and I had forgotten to shut the coop pop-hole. Expected slaughter inside but they were all still asleep -so lucky or what!!!!
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Last night was the date not to make noise or il be fined so got all birds in went to bed I dident put the shutters over the windows. 5.15 all cocks crowing hens going made the abaitment order to stop noise .Just forgot like you.
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Blondie refuses to go in there still after a couple of months, as Jethro goes for her and injures her.
Are all your chooks named after pop groups FW? :D
That was Normandy Mary ;D
My Blondie's a sheep :sheep: and most of my hens have names like 'Mrs Black', Mrs Grey' and 'Buffy'.
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Last night was the date not to make noise or il be fined so got all birds in went to bed I dident put the shutters over the windows. 5.15 all cocks crowing hens going made the abaitment order to stop noise .Just forgot like you.
Oh dear. :(