Yesterday was cold and icy on top of the small amount of snow that sat around all day. However the cold weather did not deter the daffodils. Bless their beautiful nodding heads. Bowed down under the ice but still smiling like crazy. They are universally joyful.
I drained the yoghurt to make Labneh. Daisy and I are still struggling with her mastitis. This may take a while. So once a day I milk her good quarters separately for the house so we have clean milk and cream.
Yesterday I found two more dead partially eaten chickens so I repaired the holes in the chook house. Put a radio on for the night. Left Ton out to roam and put Boo in the barn to ensure the piglets are protected too. He is on a long chain right next to Tima’s pen with the big dog over by the Plonkers. I have no idea what this predator is yet but after reading yesterdays comments it seems we are thinking raccoon. I am looking for a trap.
I will find a trap tomorrow and bait it with marshmallows (thank you sundog) and see if we can relocate him. I am not sure how much of the commercial radio all night long the chickens can take! But I do know that wild animals do not like the sound of the human voice. Not until they are used to it anyway. So it might buy us a few days while it looks for a new way in.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Love your friend on the farmy,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
62 responses to “Battening down the Hatches”
How awful, I know it’s part if the food chain but I can’t help but feel sick for those chickens and their peeps to have witnessed the carnage. I do hope the radio works.
It didn’t .. two more dead this morning. I will have to take another tack.. c
So sorry, C. This is awful. And I was about to write that a farmer I knew had trouble with raccoons sneaking into the sweetcorn patch. He kept a radio on all night and that worked. I bet you have a coyote problem. That would be my guess.
Wow! Even with Ton out? What a shame. 😦
I use NITE GUARD lights. They work really, really, well! And as you know from reading my blog we have fox that live right next to our barn and skunks and raccoons. Oh, by the way….a relocated critter will find it’s way back unless you can take it over a river. They won’t cross a river for some odd reason.
✿♥ღLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Darned freezing here in the UK, too, and what animal doesn’t grab the only patch of sun?
Oh, Honey! What next? 😦
Love the photos of Tima sleeping on her pillow…
We have a quarter-inch of sleet on the ground this morning…will it ever end?
Oh that does not sound nice, we have a sunny day .. cold.. but at least there is sun before the wind.. lets hope the ice has gone.. c
Oh you do have your hands full do you not! And now this late April storm! But what lucky farmy folks…they look content. Stay warm.
Does Ton really roam about? If I left my dogs out they’d sleep (and whine) all night on the porch…
Ton divides his time between the verandah and either Daisy or Sheila, but he achieved nothing as there were two more dead this morning and one carcass was left right up by the house under Johns work truck.. I guess the animal dragged it under there to eat it.. So I can only assume that all three dogs were guarding the barn, no-one at the chooks house. But Tima and Boo had a nice night!.. c
Oh C, sorry to hear about more chickens. Hope you get to the bottom of it all soon.
Have a lovely day.
🙂 Mandy xo
Yep Racoons are about now, trying to stock up on all the food they didn’t get this long cold winter! Along with Foxes around here that are clever buggers and can climb most anything! Never heard of marshmallows in the trap before, must try that. I used cat food in a tin, but guess what I caught? Yep my cat LOL. If you are going to re-locate what ever you catch, make sure you go a long way out. They can travel miles and miles to find their way back to their territory.
Good Luck my friend.
Hugs
I am actually leaning towards a fox now. But how he got in and then got a chicken OUT is puzzling me. I am going to climb up into the roof today, which is a bit of a performance, but maybe it is a racoon and he is coming down into the house through the ceiling. c
Ah HA!!! Do you have an owl?
✿♥ღLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
I love daffodils . . . . but DO hope you find the night predator – you have talked of coyotes: would they come into a farm, would they be interested in the menagerie ? Glad you have Boo looking after Tima!! Best of British!!!!!!
Boo very happily slept out there on his junk yard dog chain.. He and Sheila would set up a ruckus if something came in that door.. c
Here it is sunny — so strange to read about snow in Illinois and on the East Coast. Sorry to hear about your chickens. We are eating chard and kale out of the garden once a week now and my first lettuce leaves have popped up. The breakfast nook window is full of small tomato seedlings, waiting to be big enough to set out. There are signs of one kind of basil (none of the other) and the beans and black-eyed peas are growing slowly. There may be a couple of butternut squash leaves — too small to tell what they are yet.
How wonderful that you are eating from your garden.. Basil is my absolute favourite herb, I can never have enough.. your yard must look fantastic.. c
Maybe someone already shared this link or another with you, but this site gives good information to help determine the correct chicken predator. http://www.freewebs.com/professorchickenspredators/
Deb, thank you.. what a very sensible site. And yes, as I suspected, leads straight to a fox. And I think there is more than one because both birds(remains found this morning) were killed and eaten in different spaces. Dogs will take their kill away from the others to eat it alone.Dammit. I have never even seen a fox here before.. c
There is a reason they refer to fox as being sly.
Here is another good website that has information on how best to protect your chickens from fox.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/red-fox-chicken-predators-how-to-protect-your-chickens-from-foxes.
Where is the snow when it would come in handy to capture the prints of the predator!
Funny you say that bev, because I was thinking of going out and sprinkling flour around after everyone was settled.. though how useful that would be i do not know.. c
most feed or hardware stores have live/box traps, cats can be released unharmed,
i set 1 very close to hole critter is using to go in,sometimes no bait is needed,if critter has been thru hole before, or for coons ,i use peanut butter, or can of cheap cat food,with holes poked in lid to release aroma, so can be reused for multiple victoms.
one summer i caught 19 racoons attempting to enter chicken house.when i made door for chickens to go in, i made it same size as live trap.when chickens go in at night, i put trap in door
ah.. yes.. I need a trap.. 19 raccoons, wow, big family.. c
Oh no the chicken thing is awful! Would feral cats or stray dogs be capable of killing the chooks? Our temperatures have taken a sudden dive too, 10C this morning 😦 So our winter has begun. Laura
Not cats unless it is a bobcat. The only predators we have in NZ are domestic dogs and feral cats, so I am still coming to grips with the whole wild animal thing.. c
And we don’t know how lucky we are!
Good luck Celi XO
Oh what a shame. It’s awful when something gets in and starts systematically destroying your floc – for you and for them. Do hope you figure something out soon. Big hug 🙂
Sorry, Celi, that your nightly raider has returned. Hope the dogs’ presence will thwart it until you can set up a trap. For the past 2 Summers, we’ve had a family (?) of about 6 raccoons use the 2nd fl porch as a playground at night. When they hear the raccoons, if someone opens the inner door, it’s not unusual to find one hanging on the screen of the outer door. No matter where they are, though, once discovered, they climb up the porch’s support pillars to the roof. I’ve no idea how long they stay up there or if they go to my neighbor’s roof for the descent. The point is that they can climb. Perhaps yours has found a way in that’s not ground level but, because the birds are heavy, must exit via the ground carrying the bird or “dine in” before exiting the way it entered. I hope you get to the bottom of this. Good luck.
Ah yes, i see what you mean.. and that old shed is a colander.. c