The Big Chicken Massacre

One morning I arrived at the farm to see feathers all over the place.    It looked like something had killed a lot of chickens and by the looks of the different colored feathers, it was more than one.  I had also forgot to close the large door to the coop that night so it was open all night. 

At this point, I wasn't sure what had killed all the chickens.   Whatever it was had eaten all of the birds, including the feet, head, and bones.   I ruled out raccoons as they will only eat part of the chickens.   It appears that I was missing almost 30 chickens including my two roosters, Roy and Delbert.     

I found this which appeared to be coyote scat near the pond.

The farm is completely surrounded by  houses and the perimeter is all concrete block walls which are over 7 feet high.    I found dead buried chickens along the walls of the farm.   This was another clue that it was coyotes because they will bury food they cannot eat and come back the next day and eat what they buried.

I dug them all up and disposed of them.  I didn't want them coming back to eat that they buried.

I found a portion of the farm that has access to the Santa Ana river.    The coyotes has dug a large hole under the fence and were accessing the farm through that area.   I installed a motion activated wildlife camera near the hole and got some really good pictures of the coyotes.   One of them had a really bad case of mange as you will see if the following pictures.  

There were a couple more visitors also after they coyotes stopped by.     I  placed concrete pavers on both sides of the fence so they couldn't dig under the fence anymore.   I haven't had any losses to coyotes since then.