We bought a weatherproof wildlife camera to record visitors to the chicken coop, just to see what’s out there trying to score a free chicken dinner. I set it up on Sunday and set it so the camera goes off whenever the sensor detects motion. I checked the flash card every day, and usually it only shows us as we let the chickens out in the morning and feed them.
Today I checked it to find our first nocturnal would-be chicken thief:
Mr. Raccoon!
He stuck around for a while and checked the perimeter of the run until about twenty minutes later, when he scampered off without loot:
I can look at the sequence of pictures and see where he tried to dig into the run, but failed because of the two feet of hardware cloth skirted and staked down in front of the run. There’s no damage on the coop or the run anywhere. It appears half-inch hardware cloth is too much to tackle for your garden variety midnight bandit.
Interesting little toy, that wildlife camera. It’s nice to know just what exactly lurks around that chicken coop in the middle of the night.
Do you mind posting which one you got? Been thinking about getting one, but I’m a cheapskate.
Wildgame Innovations Model N2E. Eighty bucks or so at WallyWorld.
Thanks.
My neighbor had that problem with her chickens. She’s now having a Davey Crockett hat made….
Now – the question is, can you somehow slave one of those nifty gadgets to a 12-gauge, and make the shutter sound audible? >CLICK!BANG!< (Mr. Raccoon evaporates in a puff of fur.)
I have two of those. Got them to see when Bambi was roaming about. If you hide them well they can be a good tool to catch all kinds of unwanted behavior.
I borrowed one from a friend a couple of years ago ’cause my yard was getting dug up something fierce. It was a pack of four dogs allowed to run loose at night. I printed the images and showed them to the dog’s owners. They were gobsmacked. Apparently their kids had been letting “the puppies” out at night. I told them if my yard and landscaping were dug up again, they’d hear from Animal Control and my Shyster. End of problem. The missus said I can have one of those cameras of my own for Christ’s Mass this Winter.
The good news? Those cameras also make pretty good security cams for the 2 legged critters. The police LUV it whjen you present them with nice b&W’s of the preps that broke into your house. “Oh, george and same again, eh? Steve, go by the bar and pick up Goerge and Sam”
And if you or anyone who keeps animals for food ever wondered why they are so sleepy during the day, imagine trying to sleep through this guy’s visit!
Glad its working for you.