Monday, May 3, 2010

Devastated

Today we went to take care of mid-day chores only to find that something had moved the brick that keeps the coop shut and had killed all but 3 of our chicks. The attack was so vicious we are beside ourself. Dh had checked on them this morning and everything was as it should be, we cannot imagine what could move the brick and do this. Bubba Ray is not a suspect as he was in the house all morning and he is much too little to move the brick. The remaining 3 chicks will be re-situated until we figure this out. I am still in shock, I cannot imagine how this could have happened. Sorry to keep rambling. Thoughts?

4 comments:

Joshua said...

My first thought would be a raccoon. Certainly strong enough to move a brick. I had one that bent apart the old chicken wire on our movable coop to tear up seven half grown chicks. And they do make quite a mess of it.

The only thing that would make me hesitate in blaming a raccoon would be having it happen in the middle of the day. However, I suppose that wouldn't stop it if the coop were secluded or out of the way.

Sorry for your loss. That's what led me to switch from the 1" chicken wire that a lot of the books recommend to 1/2" on our coops. It costs more and doesn't let in as many bugs for the birds to eat, but in my limited experience you need a serious barrier to keep out the possums, dogs and raccoons out in the country.

Steffmarin said...

Do you have wolves or coyotes? Joshua may be right about raccoons too. One time camping, they got into our cooler. It was one of the older ones with a hinge type latch too!

Sunny Optimist said...

omg! I'm so sorry :( How awful to find that.

Tracy said...

We've had raccoons take them like that, and also possums (although I'm not sure a possum (opossum) is smart enough to move a brick). We actually just caught a huge very old possum killing a batch of kittens belonging to one of our barn cats.

That's why our coop is held shut with a good old hook & eye latch (although a smart raccoon could probably open that too, if he tried hard enough)