Do raccoons eat chickens? Of all the wild predators, the raccoon is the more than likely to go to your coop and the more than likely to do a substantial amount of injury to your chickens. For many homeowners of chickens, the raccoon is their birds’ fundamental predator, second solely to home canines. 

Raccoons are characterised by a masks of black fur across the face and eyes, a furry brown physique and a fluffy tail with alternating black and brown rings. They’ll develop relatively massive, topping out between 15 to 40 kilos, relying on how nicely they’re fed, in fact. They’ve lengthy again legs and brief entrance legs, making them look hunched over when on all fours.

You could find these native North America mammals in practically each city, metropolis and suburb. Opportunistic foragers and expert hunters, raccoons choose to make their houses close to a water supply, feasting on fish, crawfish, frogs, snails and different aquatic life. However they’re extremely adaptable.

They’ll flip over rubbish cans to dine on trash and scavenge for scraps. If motivated and hungry, they might even enter a house or different human dwelling in quest of meals.

Do Raccoons Eat Chickens: Calling Card

Raccoons are extremely damaging hunters of chickens. Do raccoons eat chickens? Sure. These artful animals will hunt solo or expertly coordinate an assault in a small household group. They’re fabulous climbers, and their entrance paws are deceptively dexterous. They’ll open latches, undo locks and open doorways. 

Raccoons are additionally sturdy. They’ll (and can) tear aside hen netting or wire. When all different makes an attempt fail, they’ll thread their arms and palms by way of small openings and ruthlessly seize at—and tear off—any a part of the hen they’ll attain. Raccoons are inventive and sensible and can do something inside their energy to get your chickens.

Look forward to finding fairly a scene of carnage following a raccoon assault. Listed below are a couple of telltale indicators.

• dismembered adults or chicks
• useless chickens discovered the place they had been killed
• useless chickens with entrails pulled out.
• a number of useless birds
• useless chickens with lacking heads (or the heads of useless chickens dispersed all through the coop)
• dead adults with solely crop and/or breast eaten
• surviving birds with damaged wings or legs (the place the raccoon reached by way of gaps in housing or fencing)
• surviving birds with head or neck wounds or bites close to the vent
• hen physique components, equivalent to legs or heads, or different items of torn flesh in or across the water fonts
• damaged eggs/shells in or close to the water font
• normally complete flock killed, with majority of the our bodies left on website (and never carried away)
• luggage of feed torn open and contents dispersed
• assault normally occurring at evening

Do Raccoons Eat Chickens: Your Flock’s Defenses

Present your chickens with the very best and most secure housing you may afford to construct and, provided that raccoons are expert climbers, construct tall fences. Put roofs on any out of doors runs, and shut up gaps in housing. Stroll the perimeter of your coop, run and some other enclosure and look intently for any weak factors. In the event that they’re there, raccoons will discover them.

When selecting mesh on your coop, at all times buy heavy-duty {hardware} material over hen wire (which is flimsy and simply torn by a resolute raccoon). Line home windows, doorways and roofs on any out of doors enclosures with 1/2-inch {hardware} material. 

Raccoons aren’t nice diggers, in order that they’ll not often attempt to dig below fences or coop partitions to get to chickens. Nevertheless, they’ve a bonus over different predators in a single space: the entrance door. Most significantly, lock up your flock each evening. 

Due to their nimble paws, raccoons can open locks and latches that different predators can’t, so firmly repair knobs, locks and bolts on any coop doorways or home windows. Slide-bolt and hook-and-eye latches are too simply popped open by raccoons and shouldn’t be utilized in a coop.

As a substitute, use clip latches or spring-loaded hook-and-eye closures (those that require an opposable thumb to tug and launch). With regards to maintaining out raccoons, no kind of lock is overkill to guard your chickens. It’s higher to be protected than sorry. 

A Mustelid Menace

Weasels, minks, ferrets, fishers and martens are just some among the many small carnivorous mammals thought-about a part of the mustelid household, generally referred to as the weasel household. When you’ve by no means seen the injury they’ll do to a flock, you’d nearly suppose they had been cute.

Animals within the mustelid household are likely to odor relatively pungent as nicely. Their highly effective anal scent glands launch a persuasive repellent odor. These little carnivores are nosy by nature, very energetic and consistently transferring round on the hunt for prey.

As with different predators, whether or not or not your flock is susceptible to those carnivores depends upon your location. A lot of the hunters on this animal household are relatively small, so chickens aren’t normally their first prey of alternative. Due to their svelte frames, these little guys can squeeze themselves by way of surprisingly small holes (in regards to the dimension of 1 / 4) in wire mesh and openings within the coop, they usually can dig below enclosure partitions or climb fences.

Mustelid hunters are a great incentive to maintain your coop clear. They’ll probably be attracted by rodents and determine to stay round to make a second meal of your flock. 

Mustelid Calling Playing cards

In contrast to different predators who kill or take one fowl at a time, animals within the weasel household are likely to kill or injure a number of birds throughout one assault. In addition they choose to suck the blood of the prey animal, relatively than eat massive quantities of flesh. Take into account {that a} mustelid mammal would be the wrongdoer should you see a number of the following after an assault:

• chickens killed and picked up in small piles (weasel, mink)
• bites on the again of head and neck (weasel)
• solely the top or neck eaten or bitten off (weasel, mink)
• bites across the vent and/or intestines eliminated or seen (fisher, marten)
• our bodies tucked away to return to later (fisher, marten)
• small birds, equivalent to chicks and bantams, completely lacking (mink)
• lingering odor (all mustelids)

Your Flock’s Defenses

Safe small openings and weak factors, and preserve a tidy coop and storage space. Cease weasels at their level of entry by securing corners and gaps which can be bigger than 1 / 4 in dimension. Use {hardware} material with 1/2-inch openings to line home windows and as fencing within the run. Retailer feed in predator-safe containers, and preserve the coop clear to scale back or get rid of any rodents, thereby not attracting any mustelids. 

Lots of the mustelids are cautious round people, in order that they’ll preserve their distance the place there may be noise and light-weight. Lock up your flock nightly. These predators are more than likely to assault after darkish. 

This text about do raccoons eat chickens initially appeared within the September/October 2023 difficulty of Chickens journal. Click on right here to subscribe.