Kitchen Garden Forum

Last week I lost three hens to...something. My chicken roost in an open fronted barn about 7 ft up on perches. We found the first corpse partially eaten under a tractor, the next was under a trailer outside and covered over with leaves, didn't find the third, she was just gone. There was no great mess of feathers like you get with a fox.

Answers on a postcard....

Motherwoman

One of the allotments near to ours has had a problem with mink, they killed 10 chickens in one go a couple of weeks ago sounds similar

Could be a Buzzard?

John

Well we got the stealth cam on the job (we normally have it trained on the gate for 2 legged vermin) and it turns out to be a ruddy great feral cat! We weren't expecting that. It must have been leaping from the tractor and grabbing a hen in passing.

MW

Robo

You say you have mink problems

Regards

Arnie

hi, Arnie its not our allotment with the problem but one near by , it is about a mile from us, they have lost a lot of chickens to them , some one is supposed to have seen one climbing the fence around the allotment, the story is that there was a mink farm in burtonwood which is about 5 miles away and some free the mink idiots let them loose

Dear MW, I was wondering if it could be a big old tom cat, but i have never known one to cover a chicken over before, so it kind of threw me.

Hope it doesn't come back.

Hi OH,

Unfortunately it is coming back, at the moment it hasn't taken any more chickens. We do regular evening patrols and have placed some cord soaked in deisel across the front of the barn and scattered orange peel around as someone said that they don't the smell of both these things. We're even considering putting out some cheap tinned food to keep it full up!

The covering up threw us as well, we had thought stoat or large rat. If it's old of course that would explain the interest in static chickens over more mobile prey.

MW

MW they don't like walking on prickly things either - try some holly leaves in a barrier it can't jump over. Even more effective when they start drying out a bit & the pointy ends turn up slightly! Keeps mine off my salad bed at home! I put them on when I sow & the plants come up through it.

Westi

It would look quite festive, too.

Just goes to show I'm daft really, we've been leaving out dog food for the pussy cat every night. Working on the theory that if his tum is full he won't take any more hens, it's working so far.

MW, do you ever go on holiday?

Thst was my first thought.

Hi Peter,

I had to think how old number 3 son was and then worked out that I have not been on holiday for 22 years Don't really care much, I enjoy living where I do and feel no desire to go anywhere else. I have been other places, Italy, France, Phillipines and lived in Brunei for a few months and the best thing for me was the ferry pulling into East Cowes and the sound of metal rigging hitting the masts on the yachts, just sounded like home. Even the smell of the seaweed on East Cowes beach was good!

I don't need to get a life... I have one.

MW

Totally agree MW. If you live in the Isle of Wight who needs holidays? I feel the same way about Northwest Wales. Other people come here for holidays; we have it all year round

I fully agree, MW and Alan. Many a time do my OH and I stand at our windows looking into he green and the sun shining on the moors behind and say, "why would we want to go on holiday anywhere when we can live here all the time?"

At this time of the year, when all the newspapers and supplements are full of offers for cruises, exotic holiday destinations and other 'delights', I just don't get it ..... I just think of queueing at airports, even sitting for hours in long train journeys (with, usually, rather unpleasant toilets on trains!), not for me, thank you.