Around 6:30 I headed out to start on the garden, our chosen project for the morning. That's when I realized that things were truly not right. Between the pond and the garden lay a dead chicken surrounded by a couple of piles of feathers. As I surveyed the farm, I found a total of 3 dead chickens and 7 areas of scuffles with feathers left behind. All of the chickens were golden sex links.
The chickens had little to no physical damage until you looked closely. On two of them i found 2 puncture wounds at the base of the neck. There were no signs that the predator responsible had tried to eat them.
What had done this nighttime attack? Well at first I wasn't sure. What and why would something kill all these chickens (we think a total of 6 are missing) and not eat them? Why were the bodies fully intact? I do know it happened in the early morning hours because at 7am the bodies were still warm even though the temp outside was 50 or so. Time to look for tracks!
Sure enough, I found tracks. Fortunately it had rained just the day before yesterday and there were several mud puddles around with lots of soft mud. In one of hte puddles in the front yard I discovered perfect tracks. The tracks match the shape and size of... a bobcat. That explains it!
Here are some track pictures:
So tonight we have locked the chickens safely away, and readied the shotgun just in case. This does accentuate the need to purchase a better farm protection weapon than a shotgun. a shotgun is going to be difficult to use effectively in a case like this, but is better than nothing. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Hey Dave -- did you find a way to keep the bobcats away? We are debating on what kind of guard animal or protection system we will need to protect the animals we will be getting...haven't found the perfect solution, nor one that's even close!
ReplyDeleteGreat Question! we are just entering predator season now again. Just last night we saw our first tracks!
ReplyDeleteThe best way to keep them away seems to be a dog. Unfortunately dogs are quite difficult to train around birds so that doesn't work well for us. But as long as we had a dog roaming the property we had no predator problems.
The second best seems to be a llama. A single fixed male with the right background will bond well with larger animals (sheep and goats) and pretty much ignore birds. They do a good job at protecting from attacks but dont really do much to deter curious predators. We did loose some turkeys right in the pasture with the llama to a fox, but never lost a sheep.
Ultimately at the end of the day the best way to protect them seems to be to have good fencing and repair it weekly. Keeping the animals locked away safely at night is a challenge but the last line of defense. Fencing itself is a huge challenge, every type has pros and cons (great subject for another Ebook!).
Perfect solution? might not exist. But good enough is what I am shooting for :)