I had been having eggs being eaten and destroyed, we discovered that it was raccoons eating them. So 2 weeks ago I caught the 1st raccoon, another raccoon was found to be doing the same thing so I caught it ( it was female and possibly mother of the first) but it wasn't in the trap first thing that morning but got it's self trapped mid-morning ( the chickens where on lock down and safe). That night (Monday) I went out and came home to one of the little roosters and 3 hens on the deck. The one popdoor hadn't closed right and something had forced it open, and on top of that it was pouring rain and thundering and lightning. Red and the bantam hen where inside safe, and one of the other hens was in the trap. I got everyone off the deck and into the coop, and look for the other 4 hens and the other little rooster with no luck. With the storm in full force and no birds in sight I had to give up.
The next morning one little hen showed up and the rest never did. The missing little rooster's feathers where scattered from the old dead tree (where I did look) part way down the yard, nothing of the 3 hens ever turned up. The hens where all 3/4 EE/ 1/4 BA (Red and the BA/EE hens) that where hatched last fall, two where black with red lacing on the neck and one was the classic EE coloration.
5 Days later I caught another raccoon, who has very aggressive and did something I had never heard a raccoon do it screamed. And I don't mean the shrieks and other random noises raccoons make, I mean sounds like a human child is screaming. It was one of the creepiest noises I've heard. But it has now been 4 days and no new raccoons/predators have been caught and no other deaths or stolen eggs have occurred so hopefully this is the end of it for now.
I gave away the mean brown leghorn rooster a few weeks ago to someone to butcher, plus these losses I'm down to 6 hens and 2 roosters. And the remaining brown leghorn rooster will hopefully go to a new home with my grandmother soon, as her rooster Hawk has become mean and she plans to butcher him and take the brown leghorn. If that happens I will be down to 6 hens and 1 roosters, if she doesn't end up taking him I'll probably give him aways as 2 roosters is way to much for 6 hens. And that's what's been going around here.
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