Predator Deterrants and alarms

We just lost one of our breeding does and we lost 4 ducks last week. We're over it.

We can't get a livestock guardian because we're in an urban environment with close neighbors. We also don't love loud animals ourselves, which is why we do rabbits primarily.

We are thinking about installing cabinet/window alarms on the individual hutches, and possibly adding a floodlight to scare them off. We think we're working with raccoons and opossums primarily. Nothing big. The neighborhood gossip is that it is a fisher cat that lives in an underground burrow behind my neighbors house. We're pretty sure that one is a groundhog.

Do you by chance have pictures of your hutches so we could give specific advice?

In general, I think knowing your predators will help you the best with deterring them. My personal nightmare is a fisher cat challenging my chicken run because I think that might be the only thing besides a bear that could get through.

A first so-so effective deterrent that I could recommend is motion activated flood lights. I have a couple cheap ones that I purchased three years ago still going strong. The idea is if a predator is approaching your animal run/hutch/home that the sudden burst of light might spook them off. I know of friends that live rurally that have racoons become accustomed to it but it did work for some time. Windchimes are another intervention that is so-so in my mind but can't hurt.

Racoons like to hug fence lines and keep hidden by brush/bushes as they make their way around. Do you have the ability to rearrange your yard to keep them from feeling safe traveling?

I have heard of motion activated sprinklers being an excellent deterrent but I have not tried it myself.

Timothy Norton wrote:Do you by chance have pictures of your hutches so we could give specific advice?

In general, I think knowing your predators will help you the best with deterring them. My personal nightmare is a fisher cat challenging my chicken run because I think that might be the only thing besides a bear that could get through.

A first so-so effective deterrent that I could recommend is motion activated flood lights. I have a couple cheap ones that I purchased three years ago still going strong. The idea is if a predator is approaching your animal run/hutch/home that the sudden burst of light might spook them off. I know of friends that live rurally that have racoons become accustomed to it but it did work for some time. Windchimes are another intervention that is so-so in my mind but can't hurt.

Racoons like to hug fence lines and keep hidden by brush/bushes as they make their way around. Do you have the ability to rearrange your yard to keep them from feeling safe traveling?

I have heard of motion activated sprinklers being an excellent deterrent but I have not tried it myself.

Posting pictures, in general, is hard for me. I don't have a digital camera as my daily carry. The hutch that it got into had a latch that requires fingers to open. It was not broken into, but opened. That's why we're pretty sure it wasn't a fisher cat (it would have just ripped the door off the hinges) but a raccoon because of their little fingers.

We moved everyone out of those hutches into chest-style boxes. Hardware cloth and lumber. They have a hasp with a lock. Heavy lids, and long screws holding it together. The bottom hardware cloth is held on by screws with washers, so it's tear-resistant. We do have one hutch that has crappy doors. I hate the crappy door hutch, but the rabbits have to live somewhere.

These are pretty doable suggestions, Tim. Thanks! I'm going to try the floodlights and the windchimes first, since they're pretty simple to get set up. We have a brush situation that could get cleaned up for sure, so that may be something we focus on this week. My spouse is collecting the trailcam today so we can get an ID if it comes back. We feel really shaken up by the whole thing, but hopeful that we'll get ahead of it.

I'm considering doing an electric fence but that's $$$$.

No new deaths since the move into the chest style hutches, but some updates are here.

Neighbor described what she saw: a "snout" and blue/green reflective eyes. My spouse said "We have a feeling it's a raccoon" and she said that that makes sense to her. Definitely not a fisher cat.

Windchimes and a trail cam are up, crappy doors have been fortified (and my bucks are like wild animals, I think that a raccoon would only try them once, but I'm hoping to not give the raccoon an opportunity.)