Chickens are really quite bloodthirsty.
My gramma’s flock would eat any field mouse they found with horrid gusto.
My grandad built her a concrete block everything-proof chicken house after weasels slaughtered her beloved Aracunas one night.
I raised 5 ducks in the kitchen.
For years, they followed me everywhere I went around the property, like little funny looking dogs.
One night, the Dobes started barking at the front window and I ran out to check the ducks, only to have them charge into the kitchen with a really nasty skunk on their heels.
They *knew* to quack and alert me and head for the door.
I spent the night consoling them beside the wood stove.
[they were still shaking from fear]
The next morning, the skunk was gone and I opened the door to let them out and all 5 of them just stuck their heads out, craning about to be *sure* Demon Skunk was gone.
I miss those silly things...:)
***My grandad built her a concrete block everything-proof chicken house after weasels slaughtered her beloved Aracunas one night.***
I had a coon killing mine till I found out how he was doing it.
I went to open the coop and found one hen gone that morning. The rest of the chickens were not in any panic.
The next day another was gone, and there was blood and feathers outside the coop. The chickens were still calm.
When I looked inside the coop in one courner by the roost was a large ammount of blood and some guts. The coon had found a 1 1/2 inch opening between the roof and the sideboards. In the night, he would reach in, grab what he found and pull it through the opening.
I then put boards up along the openings, and live trapped the coon.