Pine Martin Killer! ideas or deterrents welcome!

[Copper9Miko1]

Hi! so I'm new here and me and my family keep having martins kill our chickens, normally we find them and get rid of them by now or our barn cats do.

We got a rooster last spring and he seemed to keep our hens safe until he was killed two days ago then a Brahma and one of our Speckled Sussex got killed, multiple injured. me and my father blocked of all exits and holes we could and dug up the ground since our first martin was in a yogurt contain under the ramp to the pen. We took out any container and built a trap which we plan to lock the chickens in the coop and see what other information we can figure out.

The hard thing is they can jump right through the chicken wire and dig under the fencing we have under the coop walls. We plan on rebuild the coop's run this spring since winter is about to hit but I was curious of any light that could be given on the matter since the martin killed our older chickens instead of our young ones and dose anyone know if the anti-marten sprays are good or not? thank you for any feed back.

 

[nuthatched]

Can you get pictures of your set up?

 

[aart]

anyone know if the anti-marten sprays are good or not?

Probably not.

Those slinky little suckers can get thru some pretty small holes.
I'd keep setting traps.
Put the traps inside a wire dog crate to keep the chickens from getting caught.

 

[Copper9Miko1]

Can you get pictures of your set up?

I could try but I'm on my laptop and not my phone, plus very redneck looking lol its basically to runs a larger one with a slightly smaller one connected by a hole in the fencing we can pull back or tie up to separate new flocks from old ones before integrating in the fall. with a smaller coop for the smaller run (closed right now since the new flock are integrating with the old ones) and a bigger on for the main fleck with a turn of chicken wire leading to the coop's door, we put dog hair in the wire to try to scare it away with scent and are putting a trap later tonight once all the birds are in I'll try to get pictures then.

 

[Copper9Miko1]

th

Probably not.

Those slinky little suckers can get thru some pretty small holes.
I'd keep setting traps.
Put the traps inside a wire dog crate to keep the chickens from getting caught.

thank you for the info and we're actually putting them out at night since that's when they hunt our chickens at least since us and our dogs are out in the day off and on and since there's only one path to the coop they'll be sleeping in tonight we're setting the trap in the path

 

[nuthatched]

I could try but I'm on my laptop and not my phone, plus very redneck looking lol its basically to runs a larger one with a slightly smaller one connected by a hole in the fencing we can pull back or tie up to separate new flocks from old ones before integrating in the fall. with a smaller coop for the smaller run (closed right now since the new flock are integrating with the old ones) and a bigger on for the main fleck with a turn of chicken wire leading to the coop's door, we put dog hair in the wire to try to scare it away with scent and are putting a trap later tonight once all the birds are in I'll try to get pictures then.

Replace the chicken wire with hardware cloth and an apron, you might want to make a completely enclosed run.

 

[Copper9Miko1]

Replace the chicken wire with hardware cloth and an apron, you might want to make a completely enclosed run.

it's completely enclosed we just need the hardware cloth or netting over the chicken wire which we plan to add this spring when we rebuild the run ( because of the moister here wood rots fairly quickly, we've had it for 7 years but it needs new polls)