Chicken Massacre Follow-up Post - RESOLVED!!!
I got the bastard! Pretty sure it's the same bitch from last year too!
As a follow-up to my post, Catastrophy yesterday morning on Fleming Family Farm!!! from a few days ago, I have now dispatched the culprit.
Wednesday morning I found the carnage in the chicken yard, as we were leaving for our vacation to Seattle so I did the best I could. I found the hole it dug and pout 2 metal jawed traps in the hole with a dead bait chicken nearby. That was wednesday and we got back late Saturday afternoon/evening.
It appears the bitch came back Saturday morning and got caught in my traps. I was smart and tied the traps to the fence to keep it from running off with my trap. When we returned home it was in the trap. My mother was not going to even entertain the possibility of having to dispatch it herself. So it was about 11pm last night and I went out and did the deed. It was super fast and hopefully ended this cycle.
The coyote had taken 20+ of my chicken's lives and I am completely content with the retribution. We were looking at butchering some of our hens soon to cull the numbers down a bit and we lost all that meat to a piece of shit coyote. There is plenty of other food available around and for it to just go in and indiscriminately kill almost every bird, I'm very happy to remove her from the local environs. I will not have her teaching young that I have potential food.
I've had dogs around my entire life so to have to do this is a bit disturbing as I feel a pretty strong connection to Canis. There are plenty of animals I have killed over the years but dogs and the like are some of the ones I have refused to, until now. This was my line. I have lost FAR, FAR, FAR too many birds to this one animal. I am positive that it is the same one that got my turkeys last year so good riddance. Now I will be shrinking the size of my chicken yard and will be adding a full perimeter of rock at the base of the fence. I've been thinking of digging a trench and sinking the fence a foot or so into the ground.
Check out my blog @flemingfarm
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce
All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.
If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, resteeming, following, or setting us to autovote on SteemAuto!
Good Post! We live in a very small town and have never had that level of destruction. There was one time a raccoon got in and killed a few chicks which made my daughter really mad since they were destined for her 4-H project. Later a possum got in and killed a few layer hens. I caught the critter and borrowed my son's pellet gun to dispatch it. A half mile down the road though a friend's entire flock was decimated by a coyote. It tore through the chicken wire surrounding the cage.
As a kid we had raccoons regularly get into our hens. At first it was due to just one bar on the doors, then the next time was thru the screens on the windows. We learned over the years, but still, raccoons are no joke. My dad still remembers as a kid watching them on either side of a garbage can working the lid of. Smart ass critters. I had to dispatch a family of them that were terrorizing my chickens about 5 years ago.
I like following you, yet ascribing moral agency to a wild animal is just not true. Coyotes are dogs. They are opportunists by design and have no power of choice. I cannot continue to read about vengeance against them. I know how painful it is to lose chickens to predators,
I too have had to bury some dear feathered friends because the enclosure wasn't fortified enough. It is always OUR human responsibility to keep them as safe as we would a toddler enjoying the lawn. Again, I feel your agony, and at the same time, I cannot condone revenge against wildlife for being...wild.
I do feel much the same. I rarely have had to remove predators. This is one of those times. I have always tried to coexist with my surroundings and this is one of the few times in my life where I have had to "deal" with a major predator. The raccoons, this coyote, and a couple of hawks as a kid are all I have taken in defense of my chickens. My primary reasoning with this one is that this is a repeat offender. She is the one who knows of the chicken pen and also dug under the fence in a similar location to the prior time. These things all mean that I couldn't allow this AGAIN.
One of the parts of farming is that each farmer has their own method, approach, morals, and beliefs regarding their chosen work. This extends to hunting, living, dying, all parts of life in general. I respect your opinion as I hope you can respect mine as this was not an easy act to perform.
We humans are a part of the food chain, not just above it. If something is threatening our food source... It's sheer folly not to address it. Unfortunately, a coyote would never understand that "no means no", unlike our toddler and preschooler who are still learning this, but sometimes our preschooler says "no means no!" so he is learning it over time. So I don't think it's a fair comparison, toddler to coyote. Toddler enjoying the lawn isn't destroying the entire lawn, the way this coyote nearly destroyed our entire flock of chickens.
Anyway... Yes, it sucks, but this wasn't so much out of retribution (though slightly was) as out of further prevention. The fact that it was caught a mere 3 days after the original slaughter, means that the trap saved our remaining flock. Thankfully. Our 4.5yo son was DEVASTATED at the loss of most of our chickens, he came running to me. He was with @flemingfarm when he discovered the massacre.
We don't raise a flock so a coyote can come murder them, not even killing for food, this was just for killing. A few would have been for food. 20+ was just for fun, and now what happens when this same coyote sees our 1.5yo in the yard, after it kills all our birds? The toddler is the next target for the coyote's murderous acts, as he's the next smallest thing in the farm, after all the birds would be gone.
Circle of life and all that, we can't just allow this coyote to decimate our farm, because a killer like that, won't stop... Unless it is dispatched, as now has happened. Sad, but, it is what it is...I would rather it be trapped and dispatched, than allow it to work it's way up the food chain on our farm and get our toddler.
I understand empathizing with the animals, but... The animals have no compassion, and in a case like this, I would much rather protect our remaining flock than risk them going through the same horrific death as the rest of the flock. And I definitely would not hesitate to protect our children.
Hi I really appreciate the conversation, it is a tough one. My reference to toddlers was not to liken them to the coyote, but to liken them to the chickens. We are responsible for them because they are precious and defenseless.
My point about the coyote is that it cannot be anthropomorphized, as you say. It is not capable of doing anything but reaping easy pickings. So we must not leave easy pickings. @flemingfarm did indeed state such vengeance thoughts as he would like to see the animal's head on a pike, which I understand, but which is a reactionary emotion of vengeance.
It was really hard to speak out. I do love following @flemingfarm and upvote them. Reading three posts in succession about the topic caused me to loose my commentary.
Respect and all my best!
My only issue is with the spirit of vengeance, not the taking care of business. It is indeed a hard row to ho and may we all find the spirit of compassion and coexistence within our strength. Blessings to you and yours.
I think trenching out the bottom of the fence is a good idea, I know we did that and some other things around ground level and never had any problems there, or only issue was racoons climbing the fence and bears knocking it over! We have temporary given up on chickens.
Fortunately the bears are a bit north of us so we don't have that headache. I'm about to go full on "Fleming Family Fortress" for the chicken yard. I remember seeing a house near the Oakland Coliseum that was completely enclosed in chain link fence.That is the kind of thing I have in mind. Maximum security chicken pen.
Yeah, you inspired me to dig up my photos of building my coop. I'll show it off in a couple days, got sidetracked with photos of a ravenous black bear today.
Totally need to put em up. I like seeing the variety of coops that are designed and built around the world. Need the #coop tag to take off with people posting their chicken coops.
My coop is all good, it's just my pen/yard that has apparently been lacking.
Noooo! This sucks, man. I'm sorry to see this!
Thanks. It sucks. Each time it happens I find myself on the verge of saying, "Screw it! No more animals!" but then I keep going and then forget about the travesty. It's the great cycle of life I guess.
Crossing my fingers no more harm comes to your hens🎀
Thank you very much! I am doing the same but also building a fortress now to keep them safe. Enough is enough. I want safe hens.
I feel ya!
Ugh, that is awful! I lost my ducks to predators a few years ago and since then my husband built an impenetrable chicken house that has deterred all predators. We occasionally see coyotes lurking in the yard and hear them at night very often. They leave the chickens alone, but the average lifespan of our cats is very short.
My coop is good but my pen/yard for them was apparently pretty lacking. It is getting shrunk drastically and will be lined with boulders and rocks along the base of the fence. I hear the coyotes in the valley occasionally but have been hit at least twice by them now.
Pity a healthy chicken in the slaughter, hopefully you can overcome, @flemingfarm
I'm trying and I do have the turkeys, ducks, and geese, so i will still get some eggs later this year.
hopefully survived all the eggs
I feel the same way you do and have looked off of a couple of good shots in the past to my son’s dismay.
But comes a point when ya got to do what you got to do.
That is it, I finally had to take care of this problem. I try to give the benefit of the doubt but this repeat offender just went too damned far.
Glad you caught the culprit. I would be pretty darn mad if something did that to all my chickens.
The chickens this year, the turkeys last year. Yeah, not very happy.
That's terrible that you lost so many chickens! It's good you got rid of the coyote before she started bringing young ones around and teaching them that your farm is a good food source.
That was my biggest thought in all this, I don't want the offspring here.