We lost all of our chickens, in two nights. I have never been so determined to find the culprit and exterminate.
Well we lost the babies in two batches 5 the first night and 2 the second.
Night 1: We thought it was the neighbors dog, it has been on the property a lot lately and I have had to chase it off. Well we had animal control talk to the neighbors about keeping the dog supervised when outside. We also fixed the latch on one of the doors of the coop. I was devastated but hey i still had two ladies to concentrate on.
Night 2: Not a dog! We are now thinking it's a raccoon. There is this little storage area above the coop, where we put bug spray and some chicken food etc. Patrick got there to find the door of it unlatched, open and the floor ripped out. At this point I am angry, I figure it has to be a raccoon what else has thumbs so they can open latches, and quite frankly I think we should exterminate them all.
There are so many emotions first I knew this was a danger getting chickens to begin with but of course you never think it will happen to you. we raised these girls from babies and I want them back. Then it hits me. How in the world are we going to tell the boys? They love the chickens. This is going to be tough.
Patrick did some predator proofing, he put pad locks on all 4 doors and put chicken wire on the bottom of the coop so nothing could dig into the coop. We decided that the coop was safe for chickens again so he went and picked up some new babies for us this time we have 6 hens and 1 rooster.
We put up a trail cam pointed at the coop and put out a trap to see if we could catch the critters. Well they ate the bait and didn't get caught which was discouraging but now we know what we are dealing with and when they come around. From what we can tell there are at least 6 raccoons and they show up around 2 in the morning.
The hunt begins...
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