Chicken Massacre
April 21st, 2014 · 2 Comments · Posted in farming
Eggs and meat birds raised on pasture have become the ne plus ultra of the poultry dining experience. We love to think of the protein on our plate as having roamed freely on grass just as nature intended before being offered to us as a meal.
Recently we here on the farm discovered just how difficult that ideal is to attain. Nature, it turns out, has quite a few other uses for the chickens the farmer attempts to raise in his fields.
Last week we suffered losses to our flock of laying hens that were far worse than I originally inspected. When I was finally able to take a count, as many as eight of our Rhode Island Reds–or 30 percent of the flock–were unaccounted for.
Here’s what I think happened: While I was visiting with our sheep not 50 yards from where the chickens were congregated around their mobile coop in the orchard, some kind of four-legged predator–fox or coyote is my bet–brazenly ran in and snatched one of our birds. I remember hearing some squawking. But that’s also what hens do when they’ve laid an egg.
I didn’t pay any attention until I checked for eggs about an hour later. That’s when I saw the sure sign of a kill: a ring of feathers lying on the ground where the culprit grabbed our hen. Many of the hens must have run for the hedgerow and hid in the bushes. All I saw was another group, led by our biggest rooster, wandering off toward the house.
The birds that secreted themselves under cover sealed their own fate. For they were not inside the coop as usual when darkness fell and I returned to lock up the coop for the night. Not knowing that so many of our hens still lay in hiding, I latched the coop door and headed back to the house. I believe it was sometime later that the hens emerged from hiding, eager to get back to their roosts inside the coopy, only to be set upon by perhaps multiple predators.
When I returned to the scene the next morning, I found multiple kill sites, meaning areas of ground littered with feathers. And from the kitchen window I could see something that looked like a carcass far up the hill toward the back pasture. Sure enough, it turned out to be a partially eaten hen, its head and a good portion of one shoulder chewed off down to the viscera.
The fact that the other birds simply vanished tells me that the critter–or critters–responsible was of a fairly good size, since each of the hens weighed five pounds or more. Coyotes and coyote scat have been sighted on the property. We recently spotted a fox out the living room window.
Remarkably, we had raised our chickens roaming freely on the property up to this point with very little loss. They survived a particularly long, cold and snow-packed winter unscathed, only to suffer a grievous attack just as all the snow had melted and the pastures were beginning to green. All I can think is that there is special significance to this particular time of year: the carnivores who inhabit the surrounding woods must be desperately hungry–hungry enough to penetrate deep into our property in broad daylight for a meal.
What’s a farmer to do? We went to considerable expense erecting an eight-strand, high-tensile electrified fence almost a mile long around our property. That fence obviously does not keep out certain determined predators. We’ve now ordered poultry netting–temporary electric fence–to surround the chickens with another layer of protection. Failing that, we may need a guard dog to patrol the farm. Until the netting arrives, the chickens are confined to their little coop-on-wheels.
The only way to guarantee the safety of our chickens from attack–whether by ground or from the air–would, of course, be to enclose them entirely in some sort of cage. But then they would hardly be “pasture raised” anymore, would they?
You see my dilemma. The difficulties facing the farmer determined to raise his livestock as naturally as possible are seldom well advertised. But we do continue to try to overcome them.
You are no doubt blaming yourself about the loss. I think a dog is in your future. This event is very sad. It also gives a true picture of the struggle s you face.
This is the perfect microcosm depicting the balance between freedom and security. There really is no guarantee the more you harden the cage that the predators wont be successful again. I think a dog is a better deterrent, both because they have a scent that your predators will detect and dogs are an active threat. I would recommend contacting the local animal control or county tracker to see if they have had any reports or may know if there is an active pack. Choose a dog breed that can defend against several animals.