Predator Protection Program Suggestions

[Gavin_H]

I am an amateur poultry keeper, keep ducks of various breeds, chickens of various breeds, and some pearl guinea-fowl.

One of my guinea-fowl pullets just got nailed by a hawk whilst the others were sounding their alarm and hiding in the bushes. My giant cochin rooster & other roosters couldn't help as they were between a fence. I am currently mildly ill, and so I have my family members assist me in caring and keeping our poultry of various beautiful species. One of them forgot to put down our guard Belgian Malinois x Dutch Shepherd herding and protection dogs to the area of where they are kept & free range. As a new homesteader, I comprehend that death is inevitable on a homestead as we have experienced enough casualties already.

My question is any suggestions for my predator protection program that has been currently in structuring.

So far our live protections are, flocks of guineas (which we need to expand to 30), soon to be African Geese, Heavyweight Duck Drakes, and obviously Roos.

We also plan to get black ducks & chickens to resemble hawks. For decoys we want to use reflective tape, owl decoys, and masks that resemble human faces. What I am asking for is any more suggestions, underrated, or not, untalked about or not, of any methods of protection to significantly reduce casualty rates.

So far, guinea-fowl have been a blessing and are extremely smart, much smarter than people say.

tl;dr: Suggestions for methods of predator protection.

Also, why did a hawk kill my guinea camouflaged in a bush instead of one of my big white pekin ducks that are close? Are they too big for them or something?

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi, and a warm welcome to BYC!

We live in the boonies so have to deal with preventing predators. Our silkies free-range pretty safely as our border collie and corgi keep the varments from coming out of the woods.

I don't believe the bird's color matters, as I once had a black silkie attacked by a hawk. One of the dogs intercepted it, and the hawk got scared and dropped it. It might work to some extent, though, so I don't knock it; I just wouldn't count on it.

We also use about a dozen solar motion lights and about the same number of wind spinners. Some of the wind spinners are 8-10 feet tall, down to those 2' cheapy ones. We also have a huge picnic table and a camper parked on one side of our property that borders a farmer's field so the chickens can take cover.

In addition, we have about 6 Blink cameras, so we know what predators might be sulking around. The latest was a young fox. I think that one's already been scared off for good.

I hope what we've done helps a little. It sure does help here!

 

[Al Gerhart]

Your first move past having a strong coop made with hardware cloth and not chicken wire, is to control the rodents.

Most all of the natural predators have a dominant prey species and it is usually rodents. Rodents pee while they travel, leaving a strong scent trail and to some predators the urine shows up as bright yellow under natural UV light from sunlight.

Huge freaking paths of scent and yellow trails pointing right at your coop. Granted, lots of predators are active at night but the scent and the UV is also present, to a smaller degree, in moonlight.

Following basic sanitation is key, search for Howard E.'s excellent posts on rodent control here on this very forum.

 

[Gavin_H]

Your first move past having a strong coop made with hardware cloth and not chicken wire, is to control the rodents.

Most all of the natural predators have a dominant prey species and it is usually rodents. Rodents pee while they travel, leaving a strong scent trail and to some predators the urine shows up as bright yellow under natural UV light from sunlight.

Huge freaking paths of scent and yellow trails pointing right at your coop. Granted, lots of predators are active at night but the scent and the UV is also present, to a smaller degree, in moonlight.

Following basic sanitation is key, search for Howard E.'s excellent posts on rodent control here on this very forum.

Never have had a problem with nighttime predators or rodents. Thanks for the valuable information though.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Doesn't need to be night time for a scent trail to work or for UV light to make the urine trail light up like a neon light. Those rodents are bringing in predators from a mile away with scent, a hundred yards for the urine trail.

 

[Gavin_H]

Doesn't need to be night time for a scent trail to work or for UV light to make the urine trail light up like a neon light. Those rodents are bringing in predators from a mile away with scent, a hundred yards for the urine trail.

Wow, so rodents and vermin could be bringing in foxes, and hawks? I didn't know that! Is there any effective ways to get rid of them? Our squirrels are everywhere! And yes we used hardware cloth not chicken wire.

Thanks for the info, you may as well just have saved a chicken/guinea or ducks life.

 

[StinkyAcres]

Electric fencing for the land predators. Some use those inflatable flailing tube men you see at car dealers and such. Not a lot else you can do for the sky predators when your birds are in large open areas.

 

[Gavin_H]

Thank you bro. We free-range/pasture-raise all our animals and going to set up some decoys & scarecrows & such. I'm currently training my mal boy to be a part-time LGD as I train dogs as a hobby & have trained under a pro.

Thanks for all, will try the tube guy.

Electric fencing for the land predators. Some use those inflatable flailing tube men you see at car dealers and such. Not a lot else you can do for the sky predators when your birds are in large open areas.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Wow, so rodents and vermin could be bringing in foxes, and hawks? I didn't know that! Is there any effective ways to get rid of them? Our squirrels are everywhere! And yes we used hardware cloth not chicken wire.

Thanks for the info, you may as well just have saved a chicken/guinea or ducks life.

Howard E., a guy that used to post a lot about rodent control was the first one that pointed this out, about five years ago. One of those things that you don't think about but makes perfect sense once it is brought up.

Squirrels are tough to stop when there are a bunch of them. IF you have full size hens it is possible to set the door springs tight enough to stop them from pushing the door open to eat if it is one or two. Under the usual back yard flock, there is one or two squirrels except when a litter is growing up. For chicken coops surrounded by forest, well, multiple squirrel territories will abut the cleared space, the squirrels might consider the coop shared territory with unlimited food so a feeder might get swarmed.

But with a properly designed feeder, door swinging inward, and heavy springs on the door, the squirrels will trap themselves inside the feeder. Due to the design you can lift the feeder off the hanging cleat, open the top lid and dump the feed with no worry of the squirrels escaping then dunk the entire feeder in a water barrel for 20 minutes to drown the tree rats. Once dead you can fish the squirrels out, worst case remove two screws and remove the door. You can thin the squirrel population pretty fast, they don't seem to be as clever as rats so they will keep coming.

Downside is that once a squirrel is gone, another will take over the territory. So I'd have the treadle feeder in place weeks before I left on a trip that kept you away for more than a couple of days.