I noticed about a week ago that the guinea hens had started a nest under regular chicken nest boxes. For those not familiar with guinea hens, they often just lay eggs wherever until one of them gets broody and then they will start laying in a nest. It then becomes a communal nest where many of the hens will lay. Often times they will decide to find a hidden spot for the nest. There are times when the nest gets quite big before you find it.
A couple days ago after coming home from a trip I noticed the eggs were all gone! Cleaned out nest. Now early on when they first start laying, they are dispersed all around and not in a nice group, so it is often to not see a group of eggs, but more of a scattered 'mess'. This was not that, they were all gone.
I had a hunch that it might be a raccoon since none of the birds where missing. It seems that all other predators aren't interested in the eggs, just killing the birds. We have lost quite a few birds to hawks and foxes through the years but only one at a time. A few years ago we lost 7 guineas in one night to a mink.
Before you say "awe how cute" take a look at this video and see how nasty this thing was. Killed the birds just to kill. I did not realize they could spray like a skunk until the trapper told me later that he was sprayed by it.
As a beekeeper, bears are one of the biggest issues I have to deal with and over the years I have lost quite a few hives and money to bear damage. Although I have every right to shoot a bear that damages my hives, I never have. My general philosophy is that they are just acting on their natural instinct and I'm the one that is "baiting" them into the situation with my "domesticating" practices. So I do my best to alleviate the situation without harming the animal (with the exception of the mink).
So I set up my trail camera in the chicken coop last night and within hours caught the thief on video.
Believe it or not, I was actually quite happy to see the raccoon. Growing up we always had raccoons around and they are extremely smart and entertaining. About 20 years ago a rabies epidemic came through and wiped them all out. Over the last 10 years are so I would occasionally see them on the roads at night, but never on a regular basis.
This appears to be a youngster who is just looking for a meal, no harm done. I haven't figured out my plan yet, but a combination of shutting the chicken house door early and collecting the eggs before dust will hopefully solve the problem. As a kid we had a platform mounted on a tree that all the dinner scraps would go on. This was the happy medium we figured out with the raccoons. Once we started that, our garbage was no longer ransacked.
Check it out!