Tiltom
Chirping
- Oct 22, 2021
- 34
- 24
- 59
Hello everyone!
We have a small hobby farm in North Central Florida. I have had these chickens for a year and a half now. They’ve traveled with us from New York to friends houses (staying on their property) and now we are home! This is my first loss I’ve had and I think it happened either last night or earlier today. They have a very good situation for their coop, so I think maybe she just didn’t make it in last night. I was wondering if anyone knew who the culprit could be? From other research I’m thinking Raccoon or Opposum. We do have a hawk that hangs out in the early morning and around sunset but my one rooster (Scavenger) does a good job. They don’t come out of the coop until about 11 am and always go in before the sun sets. I do a head count every night after they’ve all come in. We have a solar door that closes 5 minutes after the sun actually drops. We’ve never had a problem.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting due to how the body was eaten and nothing else was taken or eaten. The head was about 2 feet away and as you can see, the body and feet are still intact other than all of the “guts” and the insides were just devoured.
I put up a camera to see if I can catch whatever it is, lurking around at night. But would love to see what you all think and if I can make things better on my side for them.
Thank you so much
We have a small hobby farm in North Central Florida. I have had these chickens for a year and a half now. They’ve traveled with us from New York to friends houses (staying on their property) and now we are home! This is my first loss I’ve had and I think it happened either last night or earlier today. They have a very good situation for their coop, so I think maybe she just didn’t make it in last night. I was wondering if anyone knew who the culprit could be? From other research I’m thinking Raccoon or Opposum. We do have a hawk that hangs out in the early morning and around sunset but my one rooster (Scavenger) does a good job. They don’t come out of the coop until about 11 am and always go in before the sun sets. I do a head count every night after they’ve all come in. We have a solar door that closes 5 minutes after the sun actually drops. We’ve never had a problem.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting due to how the body was eaten and nothing else was taken or eaten. The head was about 2 feet away and as you can see, the body and feet are still intact other than all of the “guts” and the insides were just devoured.
I put up a camera to see if I can catch whatever it is, lurking around at night. But would love to see what you all think and if I can make things better on my side for them.
Thank you so much
I noticed you are a recent new BYC member. I live near Ocala. So sorry for your loss. It could have been most any predator possibly a possum. I'm glad you're putting up a camera. It will most likely show who the predator is and it will be back. I have several cameras up on my property and see a predator most nights on at least one camera. I know a possum is around here. I have seen it on a camera and some prints in some sand in our barn so I know it's been in there. Also I had been seeing a fox. Lately I have been seeing a couple of her pretty well grown kits now hunting on their own and a coyote. Hopefully you'll get a picture of whatever is lurking. I don't shut my pop doors on my coops but I have electric wires around my coops and pens, good heavy duty netting covering all of my pens and concrete under all of the gates, all due to losses from predators in the past. Lessons learned the hard way. Good luck...
