I smell a RAT or COON in the chicken coop!!!!!

Well, I haven't admitted anything until yesterday, but we have a predator in our chicken coop!  No matter what we did, it was getting in there and killing almost a chicken every night!  It wasn't just killing them, it was eating them.  As gross as it is, and I'm really sorry about this, but I'd go out there in the morning, to find a dead chicken with all of it's guts completely gone!  It was heartbreaking.  We did everything we could think of to reinforce the coop, but nothing was working.  (And no, I'm not going to gross everyone out with any pictures of the chickens!  You're welcome.)  

I contacted a work friend of mine, whose husband does a lot of trapping.  I figured Charles was the one person that could help us!  I decided that the chickens (all 4 that were left) were going to go in the garage overnight, along with the geese, ducks and turkeys.  I just couldn't bear to wake up to any more dead animals!  

I bought a couple trail cams and Charles stopped over yesterday to look over the coop.   He came back this morning with some traps for us to use.   We've got them all set up in the coop, as you can see below.  

There's a few more that I didn't take pictures of , but suffice it to say the coop is well armed!  I also have a trail cam inside the coop, aimed at the trap directly above (I strategically took this picture so you would not see the chicken carcass that we put in there for "bait.") 

If you liked the story of me "walking" my turkey home last fall, you'll get a real kick out of this one!  

It's not as easy as you would think to get chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys into a garage!  Yesterday, the chickens had already gone into the coop for the night.  We took one of our old dog kennels out there with us to put them in to carry them into the garage.  Greg was standing at the door, trying to keep them from getting out, but it was made more complicated by the fact that both Butterballs were in there, too, and they wanted to get the bread that I was throwing into the cage to tempt the chickens!  UGH!  

OK, let's stop a minute and think this through.  We got the turkeys out of the coop and managed to get three of the hens in the cage.  Fred, on the other hand, was not so easy to get in there!  Once, he managed to get outside the coop, because Greg was trying to keep the hens in the cage and not guarding the door!  So, we finally get Fred back in the coop and I told Greg we should take the cage with the hens into the garage and come back to get Fred.   So, we get back to the coop and Fred is on the roost.  It's not quite dark yet, so he can see me and he knows that something is up, after all, his girls are all gone!  He's on the top roost, and I have to grab him.  No easy task!  So, I managed to grab him and flipped him upside down to carry him by his feet!  Greg just stood there with his mouth open!  LOL  In case you didn't know it, this is exactly the proper way to carry a chicken and does not hurt them.  They immediately become docile and just kind of, well, hang out!  HA!   

So, now the chickens are all in, and I manage to fairly easily get the turkeys in by tossing some bread in the garage.  Next are the geese and ducks.  Greg was outside with them, walking behind them, arms outstretched to kind of "herd" them toward the garage.  So he's getting closer, and I'm throwing bread to entice them in, and of course, the turkeys are wanting to head outside to go after the bread, too!  ACK!!  So, picture me in a ninja stance, legs spread, arms spread, scooting sideways back and forth to keep the turkeys from running outside while trying to not be in the way of the geese and ducks from getting in!   Back and forth, back and forth, stopping, scooting, hollering.  OK, the geese are in, so now it's time for the ducks!  Again, I got my ninja stance on, scooting back and forth, because now I have two turkeys and two geese who want to run out for the bread that we're using to try and get the ducks in!  So, we finally get them all in there, and holler to Greg "CLOSE THE DOOR!"  Meanwhile, I'm still doing my ninja scoot so they don't run under the garage door and get squished!  

Today was almost a repeat of yesterday, except because the coop was closed all day, the chickens and turkeys actually went into the garage voluntarily!   I had a couple chickens that ran in and out, but the geese were on their way in.  They were wary of what was going on, so as I'm doing the ninja scoot, I'm screaming for Greg to come out and help!  (Of course, I thought I could do it myself tonight!). So, he went out the side door to chase the lone hen that got out on me, and starts hollering that he didn't put his boots on, and it's kind of wet out there.  So, we switch places!  Now HE is doing the whole ninja scoot thing while I'm trying to chase the hen into the garage!  He was closest to the button, so once she went in, I hollered "HIT THE BUTTON!" to close the door.  Of course, this freaked out the geese, who started hotfooting it to the door, so I jump in front of them waving my arms to get them away from the door!   We finally got them all in and the door closed.  Sheesh!   

I am so glad we live in the country and there was no one there to watch!   

Hopefully, when we get up in the morning, we'll find some nasty critters in the traps in the coop!  Pray that we do, please because they need to be gone so we can get in there and totally clean out the coop to put new floorboards and fix any other holes.  I don't want to ever go through this again!  

I'll keep ya'all posted! 

Love, peace and prayers to all! 

Ninja Julie