So, we have chickens right, for about 4 years now. Just for personal use, between a few households here. The number was pretty consistent, except for when we’d pick up a few more, or one would succumb to sickness or similar, but we kept building until had about 8. That was all well and good until some unknown local preditors got word of easy pickings and decided on their new menu items. This has been very frustrating on us but devestating for the poor birds. Over the past 2 years I would say (don’t quote me on this figure, as I’m a notoriously bad note taker!) we have lost between 10 and 15 birds to predators – the 2 most recent being killed last night.
As always we have several suspects, but still no perp in custody. Our hens are enclosed by mesh wire run all the time and have access to an unlocked chicken coop. The door of this remains open year round. Another common thread, is that most of the attacks seemd to have happened at night. The ones we’re not sure of, pretty often seemd to have happened when we missed out on a day checking in on them, for whatever reason. I wonder is there a correlation here! Here’s a few likely culprits for us and things to look out for in general:
Foxes
Initially foxes were deemed to be enemy number 1. It was because of this, we began limiting the hens from having full access to the entire area, to being fenced in to a generous enclosed run. With the exception of 2 occasions, where we found breaches under and through the wire, foxes have been eliminated as our biggest danger.
Dogs
In what could be called circumstantial evidence, a local stray dog was around one evening before one of our girls went AWOL. This hen in particular, had been making her way out of the run to lay in some long grass outside it. The day I found the trail of feathers leading up the road away from our house, was the day I found a nice little nest containing 6 perfect eggs, surrounded by a larger concentration of feathers – where the kill took place I presume.
Mink
When, once we were sure our enclosure was fox and dog proof, we found a scattering of feathers inside the run, and a very scared remaining half of our flock remaining, it occured to us that mink could be involved. We’ve never witnessed mink here before, but there have been live ones trapped within a mile, up along the river.
Rats
We set a mink trap in the over grown area outside our chicken enclosure, where we found tracks in and out through the chain link fence. The only thing we caught was a number of quite large rats. Over the following few weeks after another replenishing of stocks, all was good on the ranch, which got us thinking that maybe we caught the culprit. Untill …. the Night Time Chicken Bandit struck again. While collecting eggs this morning ( 1 white and 1 brown) I was again greeted by a scattering of feathers and 2 dead birds.
Stoats / Pine Martins
The remaining possibility, that just occured to me earlier, was that it could very possibly be a stoat. Stoats are a small member of the weasel family and are native to Ireland. Pine Martins are in the same family, but much larger. Stoats are something that we have been seeing increasing numbers of around the area over the past few years. Maybe it’s because I’m spending more time outside now, or in the wisdom that comes with age, I am seeing more that is happening around me. However, following a bit of research, it seems that they are a very real chicken predator.
My Friday eveing is planned and will involve creating a small portable enclosure, with small mesh and small managable coop, for my remaining 2 birds. provided we can keep them safe for a few more weeks, we can start building numbers again, to hopefully keep our few houses supplied with eggs sometime in the near future.
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