Sad Turn for the Chickens

For a few days a chicken here and a chicken there were disappearing.  Sometimes they go rogue and try and live in the woods but they eventually come back to roost in the coop.  We would count the chickens at night and slowly but surely their numbers were dropping.

There are many possibilities as to what could eat the chickens up here in the northland.  We lost a chicken to an osprey a few years ago and some other predators include: coyote, wolf, owl, eagle, weasel, pine martin, fox etc.  Since we didn’t know what was eating the chickens and the precautions against an eagle and a weasel are quite different- Jared set up the trail cam to see what was eating our poor ladies.

Unfortunately we had to go out of town for the weekend, so we had to hope our ladies could survive long enough for us to get back home.

When we returned we had a couple fewer chickens but some more answers.  Three answers to be exact.  A mother raccoon and her two babies.  Here are some pictures of the sad turn of events.

This hen was ironically named Racoony because of her black and white plumage, and here is a picture of her happily walking around outside the coop.

Next up is a picture of Racoony in the mouth of a Raccoon.

Four chickens now rule our land instead of 14.  RIP ladies, we are sorry you aren’t here anymore and even more sad our egg production is down to one or two eggs a day.

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