Raccoons

Captured Moments – What prowls in the night.

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Yesterday I posted an update on the new fall chickens we are raising and that we lost one to a predator.  Hungry wildlife finds all the places we miss when critter proofing a coop. I reinforced the area around the mobile coop with heavy paving blocks and rocks.  The larger coop is more protected and I will be relieved when they are big enough to live with the older hens.  

I set up our game camera last night and checked on them periodically through the night too.  I wasn’t surprised to see a raccoon in the first clip.  I knew from the holes dug to get in the coop from the night before that it was something with small paws and strong., but I really thought it was a opossum.  The second video confirms my suspicions.   You can see the opossum walking on the other side of the coop.

 

  It appears about 3 seconds into the video below.

 

It appears that the reinforcing worked.  The young chickens have yet o learn to go into the top area and roost.  I am not sure why.  I see from the videos that I have a couple of areas that I need to work on today, just in case.   

Captured moments – wildlife camera

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We have a lot of wildlife around our home.  We decided to set up a wildlife camera , threw out some scraps and waited to see who showed up.  This is what we found.

We had not thrown out any scraps when she came by.  I think she was a little surprised. 🙂

We also have a fox.  Well, we know we have more than one.  Before we realized that they would hunt during the day, we started losing chickens.  We soon found out that a fox had a den close to our house with four adorable pups.  Well fed pups.  We now have a different chicken coop and a more controlled free range schedule.

 

This possum, we have named One eyed Jack.  Here, he is chasing a bug.

 

This is a younger possum

 

We also  have raccoons.

I am happy that we have not seen any coyotes.  They tend to not come up near our property.  It has definitely been interesting to see what is happening when we are not around.