We  have squirrels, coons, possums, nutrias,  foxes, birds of all types and and now reptiles coming in, I was too late to get a picture, but a slider was in the scratch grain this morning.
Just shows, have a quality product and the customers will come!

:D

Don, we have all sorts of varmints visiting here too. Haven't seen any reptiles here yet but while my brother & I was fishing earlier this week, we had a water snake for company. My garden is doing really good in spite of all the rain but this morning a big coon had wandered thru the muddy garden. Hasn't bothered the chickens, YET.    .....Paul H

Coons really enjoy organic, free range chickens and eggs.
The local feed store had guinea keets Saturday, I was very tempted to get a few, they are really great yard tenders, eat all kinds of bugs and do not peck tomatoes, peppers and squash as those sorry clucks and ducks do.
Then considered ,the only result would to be to improve the diet of the local sharp shin family
Oh well!

The biggest fault with guenia fowl is their tendency to travel. I don't have any problems with the resident redtails. The "Bum" never bothers the chickens. I don't trust his girlfriend completely tho. I think they have babies back in the woods across the RR tracks now. The Cooper hawks are born chicken killers here. The Bum usually chases them off. The Bum is 4 years old this sspring & found a mate. Together they keep the dead starlings & sparrows I shoot cleaned off the back lawn. He's a good bird. My chickens seldom get in the garden. They're pretty well trained. .....Paul H

Trained chickens???? Now I've heard everything!

Paul

Paul, you haven't heard half of it yet.   .....Paul H

Cooper's Hawks are the bane of my quail restoration effort. They are on my serious wanted posters around here.:frown The Cooper’s Hawk can eat an amount of food equivalent to 12% of the bird’s body weight in one day. This is similar to a 120-pound person eating almost 14 pounds of food or 24 pounds of food if you weigh 200 pounds. And that amounts to a huge number of Quail! Regards, Rick.

Heck!!.......I can't even turn a chicken lose on the ground here:no:..........BH51...

I persay don't have to many varmints around my parts. I do see a redtail hawk out back in the field alot. But my neighbor stopped by sunday and it seems he is getting hit with lots of different visitors. He has a cow, some pigs, and plenty of chickens! seems he had a bobcat this spring and plenty of other vermon around. He has set traps in his barn only to have them take the food with the trap tripped off. I don't know much about trapping but I do know what he is doing is not going to catch any vamints. Mink, wiesels, etc.. are hard to catch! he also has a huge stand of spruce trees around his house and something is digging huge holes in the tree farm. I believe it is skunks, but we will be setting out cameras to make sure. has two foxes that like to frequent a lot. says they sit in a certain place and hang out, one has mange something fierce! Wardens have given the green light to "eliminate" anything that is a threat to the chickens. I believe he was trying to get my services, I told him no problem.

We have four Accipiters (True Hawks) up here in Alaska - Goshawks (Accipiter gentilis), Coopers (A. cooperii), Sharp-shinned (A. striatus) (those three are essentially the "same" bird, just three different sizes), and Marsh Hawk or Harrier (Circus cyaneus). The Goshawk, Coopers and Sharp-shinned eat birds. That' what they do. Goshawks, Coopers, and Sharp-shinned, are woodland birds, and it is VERY cool (at least to me) to watch them fly through the woods chasing some bird like a robin or grouse.

The True Hawks (Accipiters) differ from the Hawks (Buteos - AKA "broad-tailed" or "broad-winged" hawks) by having narrower wings, and most importantly straight tails. Buteos are soaring birds that you most commonly see on the plains and above fields. Their broad wings and WIDE, WEDGE-SHAPED tails allow them to soar for great distances.

Of course there are also the falcons and eagles. We have three falcons - Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus), Peregrine (F. perigrinus), and Kestrel (F. sparverius AKA Sparrow hawk), and two eagles - Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). I think we have three Buteos - Red-tailed (Buteo jamaicensis), Red-shouldered (B. lineatus), and Ferruginous (B. regalis), but I'm not sure that is all of them up here.

I like 'em all, but then I like predators. As one of my professors once said, "How smart do you have to be to eat grass?"

There are no vultures in Alaska.

Paul

You must do your neighborly duty!
Might even get some good eggs if the chickens stop going to pot.[the varmit's pot, of course.]
Minks and weasels are a problem, the best solution my grandpa found was a toy fox terrier, that little killing machine went nuts on skunks, weasels, possums and rats, put the hurt on gophers, too.
Sometimes natural controls work best!

We have red tailed, sharpshin, Cooper's, bald eagles, ospreys, kestrels, merlins, broad winged, mississippi kites, black shouldered kites, crested cara-caras, aplomado falcons[look a lot like kestrels], red shouldered and harriers.
All are not here all the year, some are, some are here just in spring and fall on the migration, some such as the bald eagle and osprey are northeners that have enough sense to get to a warmer climate in the winter.

I forgot about the merlin being up here too.

Paul

Quotetwo eagles - Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos).

those are the two eagles we have in my parts, or in the whole state. Bald eagles are here in abundance now! If a person wants to see one, they are not hard to locate. I have seen a few Golden eagles fishing out on the lakes. They are both beautiful brids!!!!!

QuoteYou must do your neighborly duty!
Might even get some good eggs if the chickens stop going to pot.[the varmit's pot, of course.]

I would if the guy would ever call me! he comes over once every 4 months and presents the same problems. He came over one time and asked advice on what .22LR to get. I showed him my savage Mark II but it was to "light" for him, so I put him on a ruger 10/22 which he thought was perfect. I hear plenty of stories of animals "in the scope" but he never pulls the trigger!!!!!!!! I told him I have no problem killing animals if they are bothering his livestock!
As far as the eggs. my friend down the road is looking into buying the farm right next to me that the bank took over 2 years ago. one nice huge barn with a smaller one on the side. almost 200 acres! for some reason he feels "we" should start a farm and that is a good piece of property to do so since it is hooked onto my property and "I" can watch it. I figure if he is going to buy the property, the least I can do is watch it! Should be raising my own eggs soon. God bless.

2 yard eggs, ssu, next to a piece of home sugar cured ham or loin chop and with home made whole wheat bread with cow butter.
A very good way to start the day.
I suppose you are going to have to defend his crops against hoofed vandals, too.