My neighbour and I also lost chickens the same way you did. They have the best chicken house and run a person could wish for. They blamed another neighbours dog for taking the head off the chicken - no way it could have gotten into the run and this dog would go in my chicken house with me and sit in my yard with the chickens/ducks wandering around it. This dog got killed on the highway and a few days later, I had a chicken killed with just it's head gone. I searched on the net and on this site and the suggestions were, coon, mink (which we have on the beach) or weasle. I gave my mother hen and 8 baby chicks to my daughter, who has a 9 acre farm a few klms north of us. She had the perfect little house for her, a run that was fenced in with a wire roof over the top of the whole run. The grandson and I dug down and put crumpled wire all around the bottom of the cage wire. She was very very safe. My daughter phoned one morning, the hen was dead. Some animal had dug under the front of the little house and had """ chewed """ the plywood that was into the ground, facing towards the run, there was a good size hole and "Henny's" head was gone. I know how you feel loosing your friend but there will be another to take it's place. Good Luck with your chickens.

I've misled everyone, I think. My mother said to me yesterday, "Will you quit saying that his throat was slit? It makes it sound like a person killed him!" It's pretty unlikely that a person killed him, we think. I live on a dead-end camp road where all the traffic is from lifelong neighbor-friends. Right now there are less than 10 winter residents on the road. The only person who threatened Roland's life was my cousin, Mark, who hates roosters, but loves me. Plus, being a summer resident, he was having Thanksgiving at his home 35 miles away. He did threaten Roland the very day the bird showed up dead, and I intend to make him feel bad about it the next time we talk. But he wouldn't really kill him. Here's how the bird's wounds are better described (I was really horrified to see him and his eyes were open, so I didn't examine him the way a mature person would have.): (You might not want to read this.) He was on his back and his throat was ripped open. The reason it looked slit to me was that in the middle of the throat was a white divider--a bone or cartilage that ran from his beak down the middle of the wound. It looked like two separate lengthwise injuries down each side of oh! could it be his windpipe? They weren't really slits, though, his entire throat was damaged. I live on a lake, and a few years ago, I saw what looked like a horrible, furry, snake weaving its creepy body in and throughout the rocks on the shore. When the loud screeching stopped, I realized that what I might have seen was a mink. I've never seen another weasel or mink my whole life, but I did see a dead mink on the road once about 4 miles from here. My birds generally spend their days in a pen connected to their house. It is a dog kennel with the sides reinforced with chicken wire. I am fairly confident that it is hawk, dog, raccoon and fox-proof. There are a few breaches in the system that a skinny thing like a mink or weasel could---maybe---get through. My birds get locked in their house every night after they roost, but I'm often lax about what hour I close their little hen door. Nothing has ever bothered them, so the idea of it being a weasel is surprising to me. But not impossible to imagine. It's the total lack of blood on the bird and under him that has me so puzzled. (I did find part of his comb---a tiny tip torn off---the only damage to it. I found that in the house.) I haven't seen any sign of a struggle outside of the house, and the idea that he might have walked home that damaged upsets me, so I stopped looking around yesterday. In the last 24 hours, I've eliminated the hens. They have no blood on them. I feel good about that. The human theory is not impossible, but it would take an especially angry person to toss the bird back into my henhouse. It would have had to be a stranger to my road and it would have had to have happened between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm on Thanksgiving. Thank you for thinking it through with me. And thank you for your sympathy. I was going to write again about Roland because I'd given him such a bad rap before. Once he figured out having sex with animate objects, he seemed to settle down. I had become very fond of my little charge (pun intended) in the 28 days I knew him.

Well, since I live very close the lake and the metropark system, I am afraid that I will have to try some of these products and hope for the best. I have never had to worry about critters on such as consistent basis as I do in this yard. I grew accustomed to deer pruning my roses for me in the winter, but that was the worst I really dealt with in my previous home. My new yard is fenced completely, but smaller animals can get in on the side that is a picket fence and thanks to my SIL's dogs, there are a couple holes underneat the privacy fence for animals to creep under. (grrr!) I am leaving the motion light on to see if that helps, and I sprinked cayenne around the gardens today, so I will keep my fingers crossed for tonight.

Tunneling large animals didn't kill a tree. If you found active borers in the trunk when you cut it, that is the cause. They are probably not termites, although I really wouldn't stake my life on it, we don't have termites here so I'm not familiar with their habits. My money would be on some kind of borer. If you have other trees of same species, you should treat them annually with a product to control borers. What product may depend on the type, so you may need to do more research on what your tree is and what commonly attacks it. Here is a link that might be useful: Good brochure on borers from Colorado State