Trappin' 3.0

Got another critter. When I got to the farm this evening, the coop door was wide open. Chickens were walking around until they heard my car. The rooster came running at me, hens in tow. Unfortunately, it looks like we lost a few more hens.

Without my chicken catcher, I was wondering how I was going to catch all the chickens. Fortunately they were hungry enough and smart enough to follow my lead. I left the coop door open and entered the run through the gate, and filled their food container up. Suddenly, chicken after chicken came running through the coop to the run to eat! I only had to catch two, and the last one I was able to coax through the gate. Success!

After the chicken round up, I took a peek in the live trap in the field. Caught ourselves another chicken predator! This time, it was an opossum.

Shhhh. I'm sleeping!

When I took care of the chickens in the mobile pen, I found one was missing quite a few feathers and had been bleeding. There was a small gap in the wire on one side. Looks like there may have been another raccoon trying to break in, and this poor hen was caught up in the attack, but survived. I need Ghon to remove the opossum so we can try to catch the raccoon.

*Update*
I removed the opossum. I was more nervous dealing with him than the groundhog. Ghon told me to walk him to the woods, and just like the groundhog, open the trap and run.  This time I did that. I got the trap open enough that he squeezed his way out, then stopped and spun around and stared at me. So, yeah, I ran down the hill before I stopped to see what it was doing. It took it's time moseying into the brush and toward the creek.

Ghon felt we could let this guy go since opossum apparently prey more on the eggs than the chickens. Hope he's right...