The buffet is open until further notice. They will be back.
Good luck.
Had coons getting into my chickens last summer. In the summer months, I keep my chickens out in the field in a portable coop I can move with my truck. It has chainlink fencing on it. The coons would reach through with their little devilish hands and grab whatever they could reach. I lost about twelve hens that way over a few nights. Heads on the outside of the fence and headless bodies on the inside. I put a box trap out there baited with a headless corpse. It was too much to resist. The raccoon family was...... "relocated", let's say.
Hillbilly.....It's not so much what they cost but what are they worth. My meat chickens I raise in the summer I sell for $15 each.
My 22 laying hens lay between 3000 and 3200 eggs a year. That is about 750 to 800 dollars a year for the life of that flock. (eggs sell around here for $3 a dozen). At $3 a dozen, the death of 14 chickens could have cost him $1200 to $1300 in egg production alone.
Probably TMI, but there you have it. It's all about perspective.
Dave
