We are loosing more and more chicks at night as the last batch of the season heads for the home stretch. \u00a0The trickiest part of predators is figuring out which one. \u00a0Sometimes it is easy…..skunks for example. \u00a0We have lost 4 birds to skunks and have killed one skunk. \u00a0There is a lingering question about skunks- how often can they spray? \u00a0I ask this as my lovely wife sent me out with a shovel and the sage advice of: ‘once they spray they can’t do it again for 24 hours.’ \u00a0Seemed reasonable at the time. \u00a0So off I we went, first poking around the coop while lifting one end to get the varmint out and then trying to whack it with the shovel. \u00a0The first time the skunk made it between us and off into the bushes. \u00a0The second time we got when it turned to fight. \u00a0The question lingers in the back of my mind- could skunks only spray once every 24 hours….or was it an evil set-up that was only interrupted by the business end of a shovel…hmmm.. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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A couple of weeks ago we had a red tailed hawk get in coop. \u00a0We are not sure how it got in; however, we have found out the hard way that owls or hawks do not need to swoop in and grab and go. \u00a0Rather they sit on the edge of the coop just right and drop through a very narrow gap between the tarp and the edge of the coop. \u00a0The hawk came through in the mid-afternoon and got one of the chicks. \u00a0So far this has been our ‘favorite’ predator. \u00a0The hawk was the first one to actually munch down the chick. \u00a0The skunks just seem to eat the heads off and never even touch the body. \u00a0The odd thing about the hawk was that we found it before it could figure a way out of the coop. \u00a0Needless to say, we were not welcomed in for lunch. \u00a0 I can’t believe I didn’t take picture- I even had a camera in my pocket!!?!? \u00a0Anyway, we rolled the tarp back and let it fly out. \u00a0The adrenaline was flowing watching this raptor take off and hoping it flies away from us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Currently, we are battling a Great Horned Owl. \u00a0It has gotten a couple a night for the last couple of nights. \u00a0Not only does it eat the necks off the birds but the survivors are huddled into the corner so much that a couple more get crushed. \u00a0Well, what now. \u00a0We cannot really figure out how he is getting in. \u00a0We tightened up everything a bit after the red tailed hawk incident. \u00a0 We really only have a two clues. \u00a01- we see the owl perched on the side of the coop several times a night. 2- Only one or two birds are hit each night and only the necks are gone- an owl trait. \u00a0We have yet to catch the owl red handed- but we will keep you posted. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are loosing more and more chicks at night as the last batch of the season heads for the home stretch. \u00a0The trickiest part of predators is figuring out which one. \u00a0Sometimes it is easy…..skunks for example. \u00a0We have lost 4 birds to skunks and have killed one skunk. \u00a0There is a lingering question about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[32,42,41,40,178,43],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-predators","tag-chicks","tag-hawks","tag-owls","tag-pastured-chicken","tag-predators","tag-skunks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}