Have you ever been perplexed by an incident involving your birds? Have you ever experienced any unexplained deaths or disappearances? Have you ever observed your birds acting strangely or unusually for no apparent reason? Well then, do I have a story for you… Yes, wild animals that wander through your yard may appear to be adorable furry little critters, but I sincerely doubt your birds share your sentiments.
Unexpected and Uninvited Visitors to the Pigeon Loft:
You may believe the only threat to your pigeons is a crooked shyster coming in the cover of night to steal all your pigeons. I suppose that scenario would depend on where you live. (Although several pigeon flyers have attested to the fact that this has happened.) I’d imagine confronting that type of predator could become quite dicey. But, what about the other possible dangers that lurk in the shadows? Let’s not forget those bold enough to show up in broad daylight.
So what am I talking about? After raising pigeons for as long as I have, I feel as if I’ve seen it all, but then a newcomer enters the picture and disproves my presumption, adding to my increasing collection of tales. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say some of you who are reading this will be astonished by the extent to which some critters will go in order to obtain a meal, while on the other hand, one critter in particular—such as a Mink—will kill solely for the enjoyment of killing. Well, if a mink sneaks into your loft, it can be pretty unpleasant and vicious. There won’t likely be any pigeons remaining that are still alive. So, be sure to shield your coops and lofts from this rodent.
Red Squirrels:
Yes, those cute little furry things hopping from tree to tree appear to be harmless, don’t they? Perhaps the other colored squirrels are, but in my experience, the red squirrels are not. My breeder rollers spend their summer days in the fly pen, relaxing and enjoying the scenery. My pigeons enjoy lying in the grass to relax. I open the loft door and release my birds into their pen for the day, as I do every day.
But on these three occasions, when I went to check on my birds around midday, I noticed a dead pigeon lying on the ground. Nothing unusual was discovered when I picked it up to examine and determine what might have happened to it. There was no blood, no damage, and no missing feathers on the ground. I was perplexed. So, I assumed it accidentally flew into the loft window, knocking itself out and killing itself. Day two begins with the same routine; at midday, I walk back down to check on them. Only this time, instead of the loft structure, I find a dead bird on the ground near the perches along the fly pen fence panels.
Again, no visible identifying marks to determine how it died. What is going on? So here we are on Day three, with the same routine. But when I checked on them around midday this time, I found nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was fine, so I believe the previous two deaths were natural causes. It’s feeding time now. Nothing has changed; there are no problems. BUT, when I return that evening to close them up for the night, what do I find… Another dead bird, this time discovered on the floor inside the breeder loft. Ok, now I know something’s fishy and I am dead set on getting to the bottom of it. Being the die-hard that I am, hunting is second nature for me, so hiding myself and sitting quietly for long stints at a time is nothing for me. I can do that in my sleep… Lol.
So, the next day, I put everything on hold in order to catch whatever was killing my birds. Unbeknownst to me, I didn’t have to wait long before the culprit appeared. At first, I really didn’t give it much thought watching a red squirrel squeeze through my flypen fence panels into my pigeon pen. I just assumed he was scouring the ground looking for food kernels. But as soon as I noticed the stress in my birds and the beginnings of pandemonium, I quietly moved toward the loft. The squirrel didn’t see me coming as he was honing in on yet another bird. Well, let’s just say that my birds know me really well, and when they see me armed, they all flee as far away from my target as possible. Lights out, problem solved…so I thought. The long and short of this story is… it turned out I had three red squirrels lurking about, and you know what that means: they’ve got to go, period. After that, I took those troublesome squirrels and placed them out in the yard for all their friends and family to see what happens when you mess with my birds. This cured my future squirrel problem from that point on.
Possum:
It was a warm summer evening, and all the birds had gathered in the loft for the night. I locked them in the same way I did every night. But things were different on this particular evening. At the time, I only had one dog outside with me. I asked him to accompany me back up to the house. He refused to budge. He remained motionless, staring at the pigeon loft. He moved in closer and sniffed all around the loft. He jumped back and began barking aggressively, snarling at the loft. “What is he doing?” I wondered.
Again, I called him to come, as I was already half way back to the house. He refused; his gaze was fixed on just the one roller loft, as he became more aggressive, moving back and forth along the side of the loft. He was now even louder. Like any good owner, I trusted him, so I ran the rest of the way to the house, grabbed my gun, and went back down to the loft. I looked around but saw nothing.
My dog, who typically doesn’t enter the pen, brushed past me as I opened the gate to enter the fly pen in order to access the loft entrance, and he then remained on the step in front of the door with his snout pressed against the door frame while still growling and barking. The only unusual thing I notice when I open the loft door is that all of my birds are stacked on top of one another on the opposite side of the loft. Now that I’m aware that something is definitely wrong, I look around, but I can’t see anything. Mind you, it’s fairly dark inside at this point.
Well, I did what any smart person would do—I told my dog to find it. He was overjoyed to jump inside the loft and discover it straight away. As it turned out, there was a small hiding place on the floor behind a perch, immediately inside the door to the right. I can’t believe what I’m seeing—there’s a large possum curled up asleep. I’m not sure how it got in, but what worried me the most was the possibility that if my dog hadn’t been on high alert to detect this critter, I would have strolled outside the following morning to discover a very different outcome – the possum would have awakened in the night to gorge itself on my birds. After that, you can bet my dog got a nice, tasty reward.
Raccoons:
It was a warm, humid night in mid-July when something forced its way into my pigeon loft. I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, but I could see the devastation it had caused. Every morning at daybreak, I head out to open my pigeon lofts, allowing them to enter their fly pens and give them fresh water. (I don’t mind them if they stick to their neck of the woods out back, but when they deviate and wander into my yard, wreaking havoc with my birds and chickens, well, then… we’ve got a problem.)
Regrettably, chaos and mayhem greeted me when I opened the flyer loft door on this particular morning. A few partially-eaten dead pigeons lay on the floor, their feathers scattered. To put it mildly, the birds were extremely nervous and scared. When I looked up, I see the metal dowels were just mangled and strewn about, and the screen covering the porthole had been torn open and shredded. What an awful sight. I knew immediately that something large with climbing capabilities had entered and exited the loft through the mangled porthole.
My birds’ nervous looks warned me not to let them fly or they may not want to come back. So I let them out into the fly pen instead. They didn’t want anything to do with being inside the loft. Who could blame them. They no longer felt safe. Since pigeons can’t see in the dark, they were all vulnerable targets. (Since then, I installed electric in every coop/loft; outlets and light switches.) Okay, this story is far from over…
Now any savvy outdoorsman can bet a creature that hits jackpot discovering a honeypot food source…will most defiantly be back for more. At this point, I repaired the dowels on the porthole, mounted a hinged board outside, adding mosquito screen to the underside of the new drop-down board to safeguard the birds safety each night. I thoroughly clean the coop from top to bottom ridding all residue traces of dead birds. This enables them to feel at ease in their home again.
My pigeons are still a little uneasy as dusk approaches but thankfully have settled back inside the loft. I then start up the ladder I have leaning against the loft year-round to access the landing. Keep in mind, I still have no idea what got in and killed my birds. So, I decided to set a foot trap on the landing in front of the porthole. When the mystery critter returns, it won’t be able to access the porthole without stepping into the trap. The following morning, I sprung out of bed, and hurried to the loft. Guess what I saw as I climbed the ladder? Nothing but a sprung trap with brownish fur caught in it.
So, it’s bigger than I thought. That means I have to step up my game. So what did I do? I pulled out my live trap—not the small one for gopher or squirrel, nope, I got the big one for, well, who knows what, lol. Night returns, but I’m better equipped this time. I put the live trap against the closed porthole and baited it with the half-eaten dead bird. I rush back out the next morning. Woo-hoo-good news! I climb the ladder to find the culprit hissing and staring me down with bandit eyes inside live trap. Boy, oh boy, he’s a big guy, barely fits in the trap. It still amazes me that the large raccoon managed to exit the loft through the same porthole after scaling my ladder to get there.
So, here I am, thinking everything’s hunky-dory; I caught the culprit, right? Well, little did I know, where there is a male, there is a female mate. A few nights pass, all quiet, until one morning, I see torn screen hanging out the bottom of the trap door, and the board itself is all clawed up. I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding, what? How many are there?” So, here we are again, and I’m pretty sure it’s another raccoon. I reset the live trap and put it back up there. Next morning…nothing…next morning after that…nothing…next morning after that… Bingo! Got his mate. Dang, she’s almost as big as he was. What are these raccoons eating out in the woods? As a precaution, I left that live trap set every night for the remaining summer, but thankfully, none showed.
Weasel:
This is the story of a weasel that once made its way into my dad’s racing homer loft many years ago. So here’s what happened. When my father opened his loft door one morning, he discovered a dead racing homer lying on the floor. He noticed the two-hole puncture-bite mark on its neck under the feathers while examining it. A classic indication of a weasel bite. Weasels, for those who don’t know, do not eat pigeons; instead, they suck their blood. Furthermore, a weasel will typically kill just one bird per night or each time.
My dad calls me early one winter morning and tells me to hightail it down to his place, saying he’s got a problem. As soon as I arrive, he shows me the bird. I reaffirmed his conviction that it is a weasel. He then says, “Well, how did it get in? You’re here to go through every inch of this loft with me to find that darn hole it used.” So we spent some time walking around the outside, checking corners, and looking underneath the loft. Then we moved inside. Well, we found it. There was a little hole in the floor beneath the straw in the loft’s far side corner.
Just big enough for a mouse, or in this case, a weasel, to squeeze through. He has a wood floor; the wood on the corner floor looks like it has been chewed through over time. We nailed a small square shaped piece of wood over that hole to completely cover it and prevent any future unwelcome visitors from entering.
As we returned outside to re-examine that same section, we noticed the board had shifted slightly away from the loft structure. The weasel apparently only needs a few inches at most. The board I’m referring to is a long board nailed up against the loft, covering any access points to the loft’s underside. His loft is about 2 feet off the ground, so he has those boards along the outside to prevent critters like this from getting underneath it. We fixed everything to ensure his valuable pigeons’ safety going forward.
My dad kept a 5-gallon bucket with the lid closed tight. He cut a small hole in the top of the lid. He put a small amount of pigeon food grains inside, covering the bottom of the bucket. This was his mouse trap. Worked like hot cakes. A few days later, he checked his homemade mouse trap. He opened the lid, and what does he see? A dead weasel inside the bucket. It must have discovered it no longer had a way back into the loft and then found the mouse trap bucket. My dad called me chuckling when he said, “Say, didn’t I tell you it was a weasel? See, always listen to your dad.” I guess it didn’t matter that I too thought it was a weasel… Lol.
Owl:
This was a first for me, which makes for an interesting story. Owls are magnificent creatures, but up close they become much more so. Only then can you get a sense of how majestic an adult owl really is.
Let me set the scene before I begin this story. This happened several years ago when I lived somewhere other than where I am now. I had a smaller property at the time, so my backyard bird setup was much smaller. Not like the incredible setup you see now. By no means was my house far from my coops. I built a fairly large fly-box/kit-box for the young kit I was training and flying.
It was on stilts, about 4 feet off the ground. I had welded a metal frame with strong wire to make two full-length doors for the box. This gave me complete access to the inside of the fly box. I then used mosquito screen to cover the outside of the wire doors. When necessary, I had two full-length wood doors on hinges to cover the wire doors. I have a fly pen connected to my fly box, so my birds can be outside when I’m not flying them.
Summer nights can be particularly uncomfortable, as we all know, so I always take care to keep my birds cool and free from the blood-sucking mosquitoes. To do this, I constructed my fly box with a wood floor, installed a fan in the side porthole and left it running all night, and covered the doors with a mosquito screen to protect my birds from insect bites. This indicates that the wooden doors are open. Not to mention that I have a fly pen surrounding my fly box, which is made of dog kennel fence panels with a gate and netting over the top, so the doors are also shielded inside the fly pen. So, with that mental image in place, let’s get into the story.
It’s currently after two in the morning. The house is fast asleep. That is, until my dogs woke me up by standing on my bed, growling with their fur standing up, staring out the window toward the backyard. Well, you know what that means—something fishy is going on out back. Now, at this point, I’m in a daze, looking out the window, but it’s too dark to see anything. So I opened the window, heard nothing, so I instructed my dogs to lay down. A few minutes later, they started growling and barking again. I look out again. It’s dark and quiet—that is, until I hear what they hear.
I heard rattling and rustling noises. Well, that can’t be good, I thought. What is that strange noise? I got up, put my shoes on, and quietly opened the back door. I walked around with my flashlight. Then I heard it again. What do I see when I shine my light on the fly box? An owl that nearly covered both wire doors at once. The massive owl is perched on the wire doors, its talon stretched inside the fly box. I began making loud noises and clapping to scare it off. I gently walked over and shined the light into the fly box; they were petrified and freaking out. I began talking to them to calm them down and let them know it was me. They’re safe now.
So here I am, face to face with this giant bird inside my fly pen. I, of course, stayed on the outside of the fly pen… Lol. It was calm, just sitting on the ground (mostly because it couldn’t see very well with my flash light facing its direction). So, what was I to do now? Well, I slowly opened the fly-pen gate door, stood to the side, and shone the light on the opening. I told the owl, “Go on; you’re free to go.” Then I watched as the owl walked out through the opening and flew up over the trees.
I turned off the flash light, opened the wire door just enough to reach the dead birds. I then shut the wooden doors this time. I figured if this owl came into my yard, ripped the netting over the fly pen, ripped the mosquito screen over the wire doors, and attacked my birds, then it must be starving or it might have babies in a nest somewhere. In any case, I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. My fly box at the time was 4 feet deep and 4 feet wide, with all of the perches on the back wall and a few on the side wall. That means that in order for this owl to reach any of them, it had to startle them enough for them to fly around inside the box, allowing the owl to reach in and grab them. Very clever. I then placed those dead birds on the roof. so the owl could come back and get them. The dead pigeons were gone by daybreak. This was an unforgettable experience.
Garter Snake:
This was a real eye-opener for me. This happened to my Oriental Frills several years ago when I lived somewhere other than where I am now. My Oriental Frills are second generation, so they hatch, feed, and raise their own babies. Breeding has never been an issue, so only having a few weaned babies by mid-June is quite noticeable. So, why have they only had a few babies this far into the breeding season? I’d check the nests and see eggs, then check again a few days later and find the eggs gone.
Okay, so it’s plausible that the bird jumped up, knocking its eggs to the ground. It’s possible, right? But for it to keep happening… Hummmm. So where are the egg shells? On the floor? Nope, no egg shells or yoke residue were found. Now this disappearing-egg saga just kept happening. But wait, it gets stranger yet… I had one set of parents that kept and hatched new babies. When I saw this, I thought, “Whew, finally, more babies.” I check again a day later, No Babies. What’s the deal? Where did they go? Both babies in the nest? Just missing—how can that be?
“Well, it’s probable that the parent got up too quickly with a baby hooked on its leg, unintentionally dragging it out of the nest and down onto the floor,” I reasoned. But, both babies… So then, where exactly are these babies that presumably fell on the floor? Nowhere!! I didn’t think it was an outside source since we had another set of babies, 3 days old, still in the nest. But when I checked the next day, they too had just vanished. Nothing made sense. My Frills are very attentive parents that hunker down on their babies.
By this time, most of my birds are acting strange. And by strange, I mean they don’t want to go into their coop or sit on their nests during the day anymore. That’s it—I’ve had it; I’m at my wits’ end. I need answers, and I need’em Now! So I gave my dad, a renowned homing racer, a call. He insisted that it had to be a predator and that waiting it out was the only way to catch something this sly. My dad drove right over, pulled up some lawn chairs, kicked back, and watched the rollers fly while keeping a steady eye on the Frill coop. We sat for several hours. I was fully prepared to set up a camera inside my Frill coop for the night if nothing showed during daylight hours.
Around 4:30 p.m., we notice a large, thick, long garter snake slithering in the grass off in the distance. It came from the wooded area that surrounded my property. To be honest, I didn’t read too much into it, but my dad did. He bumped my shoulder, saying, “Keep ur eye on that there.” As we watched it slither toward the coop, I thought to myself, “Do my eyes deceive me? What am I witnessing? Are you kidding me?” I just sat dumbfounded for a moment. Then my dad tapped me again, saying, “Say, that there is the gal-dang elusive predator; you better hurry and go get it.” Of course, I leaped to my feet and hustled to my Frill coop.
Around 4:30 p.m., we notice a large, thick, long garter snake slithering in the grass off in the distance. It came from the wooded area that surrounded my property. To be honest, I didn’t read too much into it, but my dad did. He bumped my shoulder, saying, “Keep ur eye on that there.” As we watched it slither toward the coop, I thought to myself, “Do my eyes deceive me? What am I witnessing? Are you kidding me?” I just sat dumbfounded for a moment. Then my dad tapped me again, saying, “Say, that there is the gal-dang elusive predator; you better hurry and go get it.” Of course, I leaped to my feet and hustled to my Frill coop.
This demonstrates how cunning that snake was: It slithered through the yard on a mission, beelining for the Frill coop. There it began weaving itself in and out of the fly pen’s fence panel holes. It continued this until it reached the top of the netting and weaved its way onto the top of the open door, and inside it went. It would then slither from nest box to nest box, eating my pigeon eggs and/or babies. It would freak out the parents, causing them to run out of the loft. Then, when it was full, I would imagine it would slither its way back out the same way it found its way in. By the way, I never allowed it to pass the inside door; as soon as I noticed it was headed straight for the nest box, I caught it
Standing there, watching this snake in action was impressive. That huge snake knew his way around; there was no denying that from the way he maneuvered himself. He’s been here before. I felt sick just watching it, and then guilty for having failed my frills and sad for how scared they must have been. As you can see, snakes can also pose a serious threat. That was a hard lesson for me to learn. From that day on, if I see a snake in my yard, it’s gone. Not to mention, I had one go after my baby chickens while out catching bugs with their mom. Snakes are not welcome in my yard, period. I have one dog that will grab a snake and shake it violently in the air until it dies. My other dogs…hmmm, not so much; they run the other way. Lol.
IN CONCLUSION:
I hope this info helps you better protect your birds and secure your lofts from unknown lurking dangers. We hope our unsuspecting losses will be an eye opener for you and the safety of your birds. Keep your eyes peeled. That’s all for now; drop us a line if you have any questions.
Until next time … Enjoy the backyard fun.
