Mystery predator

[AllCrazy]

I've got a mystery predator that is very wiley. Something has been getting eggs at night if I don't collect them all (and I presume feed). I'm in central North Carolina. My birds live in a fortress. Fully enclosed welded wire fence run to the ground, extended a foot+ horizontally and buried. Enclosed on top, same deal. No bird loss from predation in 5+ years. I can't find a penetration in the perimeter.

Years ago, one of my birds wanted to lay eggs on top of high things, so I built a set of nest boxes in the middle of the run that are about 3 feet of the ground with steps. We call it fort stupid. The birds love it and ignore the other nest sites. I've been finding broken and consumed eggs in fort stupid.

I've tried a have-a-heart trap. Whatever it was didn't trigger it, but ate the egg in the back. Additional info from my experiments. It ate up to 4 eggs in one sitting. Last night I laid some glue traps around an egg. The egg was removed from the box and dropped on the ground (unbroken but cracked) and abandoned last night between 2:30am and 5am. The glue traps were undisturbed. My thinking was that if this thing was big enough to escape a glue trap, I'd find out.

My birds roost in an inner coop with an automatic door, and they haven't been molested (yet). What is big enough and smart enough to lift an egg out of the box and avoid stepping in glue, but small enough to avoid the trap and squeeze into the fortress? I've set the trap outside and caught several racoons, but setting the trap inside yields nothing (except eaten eggs).


Any thoughts?

 

[Egg Snatcher]

I wuld guess a snake or a possum. If it was a coon your chickens would be killed off.

 

[SilverBirds]

I think the only real way to know is to set up a camera.

 

[azygous]

Photos of your coop and run setup would help us help you figure out possibilities.

Many years ago, someone here was having a very similar issue that was a complete mystery as they couldn't figure out how the culprit was getting in. In their case, one chicken each night was being killed.

We finally convinced them to get an inexpensive wildlife cam and install it to record all activity in their run at night. The big revelation was that the predator, a raccoon, was slipping into the run between the perimeter fencing and a solid adjacent structure. It was such a narrow gap, they had assumed nothing could squeeze through it. On top of that, it wasn't even a straight gap, but was angled in a few places.

Another rare possibility is an aerial predator such as an owl. These birds can gain access through the narrowest uncovered ventilation openings, something almost no one considers.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Rats

 

[AllCrazy]

Didn't want to leave you all hanging. Good news, bad news. I set up a camera with motion sensing, set out multiple traps of different varieties, and didn't catch anything. The good news though is that I didn't lose any hens and whatever it was appears to have moved on. No more egg losses for the last 10+ days. Here's hoping whatever it was ran into a bigger predator and was delicious.