Sad Woozle...

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CuddleWoozle

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I came home to find -something- attacking our chickens. I didn't see what it was and it didn't leave any clues that I could spot in the dark. But we went from around twenty chickens to seven.

It killed my two favorites, Butterscotch and Special Ed the Rooster and I am extremely sad about it.:sad:

My brother and his girlfriend made all these promises that they would take care of the chickens for us so my mom could go back to working. Well, it was OK at first, but apparently now they're too lazy to even walk down and close a door flap.

Whatever it was, it was just walking right into the building, catching the birds, killing them and dragging them off. Not even having to work to break in! I'm suspecting either raccoon or fox, but the opening it was using to get into the run seems a bit too snug for a fox to fit through. But I'll probably never know.

We did have a litter of foxes earlier this year, but I had thought they'd moved on out of the area by now. But we've had skunks, foxes, raccoons and coyotes come through before. So really it's anyone's guess since I didn't see it.

I heard the chicken squawking, ran inside the house and grabbed a baseball bat and flashlight. By the time I made it through the yard, the attacker had fled leaving a bird with a bite wound on the back of her neck where it was trying to drag her through the opening. That's why I was wondering if it was a raccoon or something, because I would have thought a fox would just catch the bird, kill it and THEN drag it off so it wasn't fighting so much.

The intense irony is that my brother (who promised to take care of the chickens) is constantly harping on about something 'getting them', and yet he never ONCE made sure the building was closed up and secure.

I would have been doing it myself, but I -believed- they were doing it. Apparently I have to lock the chickens up myself at 2pm before I leave for work.

Lesson reinforced: Never trust anyone.
 
I don't know if these animals live in your area, but the attacker may be a ferret or a weasel or something like that.
Weasels are small, but quite capable of putting down a chicken and dragging it of. And they can fit into holes, that are almost as small as those mice or rats use.
 
Maybe you should get a puppy that you can rase alongside the birds so you can train it to a defend them.
 
A novel idea, Lestat, but I don't need any more animals around here. I already have four dogs that live inside.

Like I said above, I'm strapped for time to take care of them. We were basically waiting for the chickens to pass on from old age, but I suppose a predator decided to step in. :(

And yes, there are weasels and such in the area, but this didn't smack of them. They usually leave the bird behind because they tend to feed at the scene. All I found was feathers scattered all around, which is typical of fox or raccoon. They 'snatch and run'. Raccoon are even worse...they'll just reach in through a hole and take parts off of the animal in question. I was pondering raccoon because things were knocked off of shelves in the building and I didn't know if a fox could/would jump that high.

Just Because: There is only one species of wild ferret, the Black Footed Ferret, and it doesn't live in this area. It feeds mainly on prairie dogs. It would be some species of weasel (there are a stupid amount of weasel species. The ones most people think about are Least weasels. They're super small but they're ferocious.) or mink, stoat, etc. But they all have similar 'modus operandi', they tend to leave the birds' bodies behind. Having had ferrets as pets, yes. They can get into stupid places, even as big as they are for a weasel species. Least weasels being so tiny, they can get in through the crack under a door. (And into and out of a larger live-trap.)
 
:grouphug:

Sorry this happened. Sorry your others are not doing what they are supposed to.
 
Just wanted to say how sorry I am. You lost a lot of them. It seems really sad.
 
It is, honestly, but mostly because we've had them for a long time now. I know they were getting older and were probably going to pass on soon anyway, but it's just that I know they were scared. :(

Getting attacked by something isn't the same as just dying from old age peacefully. I went down and fixed the gap that it was getting in through and chased them all inside before I left for work.

(Although, it might make some of you giggle if you knew what I fixed the gap with...the lid from the back of a toilet. My brother took the toilet out and has never bothered to remove said item from our back porch. So I took the tank lid and put it over the opening, jamming it there with a bit of broken 2x4. My mother has told him constantly to 'break that toilet up and throw it away a little at a time' and he can't ever seem to stop drinking alcohol long enough to do it. :p)
 
Hey CuddleWoozle,

Sorry for your loss and sorry for the heartache you're feeling.

Tab
 
Plant some flowers in the bole and tank of the old WC.
It will make you smile and feel a little better. 😼
 
ESPF said:
Plant some flowers in the bole and tank of the old WC.
It will make you smile and feel a little better. ��

Except that my brother shattered the bottom off of it when he was trying to remove it from the floor. :p Apparently he never learned to pop it loose from the floor before yanking on it. (It had a line of caulking around the bottom edge and instead of my brother using his brain and running a sharp putty knife around the base to break the seal, he just started beating on it. :p)

The last I knew we were down to one chicken, which may be gone by now because I don't get down there like I used to. (I learned the hard way that I'm highly allergic to birds!)
 
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