Two days ago I was sitting in the coop holding the baby chicks when I saw a movement from the corner of my eyes.
Outside of the coop a large mongoose was walking by, checking out our coop. Midmorning I open the door to the coop and the chickens go in and out as they like, coming in for the night when the sun begins to get lower in the sky. At that point I lock them in for the night.
It was late afternoon and the majority of the chickens were in the coop, but some were still outside. I jumped up and started yelling, “Oh, no, get in, get in, get in!” as if they could understand me. What it probably did do that was effective was make the mongoose aware it wasn’t a good time to strike and he disappeared.
Until we began raising chickens, all I knew about mongooses came from the endearing character in the classic children’s story, Rikki Tikki Tavi. Set in India, the mongoose was saved from drowning by the child of the family and later the mongoose saved the child from a cobra family.
A mongoose is a big weasel and in real life, they’re far from endearing. ‘Vicious’ is the word that the man who sold us our first ducks and warned about how one will enter a coop and rip off the heads of multiple birds, eating none of them.
We’ve tried to build as secure a coop as possible. But it’s not easy keeping determined predators out, who have the entire night to work their way in. Several years ago on Friday night, my son heard the chickens clucking in alarm and ran out, yelling to us when he got there “Something is in the coop!” That something was a mongoose, who ran out when my son opened the door. It killed two hens and the next day two others died from their injuries.
We strengthened our coop even more, and until now didn’t have any return visits.
After seeing the mongoose, I told one teen that I was hopeful that it was hunting vipers. (We had a viper enter the coop one day, eating one chicken and killing another. – that was another adventuresome morning for the Werner family.) My son said it sounded like wishful thinking on my part.
It was still dark at 5:15 am on Saturday morning when I heard my son yelling from the porch upstairs, “Mongoose, mongoose!” He told us afterward he heard the chickens call out and looked over the side of the porch and saw the mongoose run inside the length of the coop. My husband ran outside while I paused to put on shoes before running out. Less than a minute after hearing my son call out, I was outside and already there were all three teens as well as husband. One was holding a huge knife, another a broom.
The mongoose was gone.
We did a check of the coop a couple of hours later when the sun was up, and thankfully all of the birds were safe. My son’s fast reaction in yelling had scared the mongoose off before we all got there. But now with a mongoose on the prowl, we need to shore up our coop.
We have large rocks lining the inside and outside of the coop, and part of the coop has a ‘skirt’ of chicken wire that is under the ground, to prevent predators from digger under and getting in. Today we’re going to closely inspect the coop to see how and where a mongoose got in, and seal it off.
Avivah
So happy you were able to save the chickens. Maybe its worth it to install a Very high and sturdy fence and for now the chickens can’t play outside. this must be so upsetting, especially the summer is here and the chickens wanna go out. How did the mongoose get in? I hope you can figure something out.
A mongoose is in the rodent family which means that it can fit in a very small space, and the chickens were most at risk when it got into their coop. Our coop is very large and fully enclosed, so a gate wouldn’t have any advantage. I saw two places on the door where it looks like he tried to chew through the chicken wire – one of the places had an opening that would seem too small to admit him, but again, being able to squeeze into very small spaces, maybe that’s how he got in. I hope that’s how he did it, since we closed it up and it would be a relief if that were enough to keep him out.
I’m positive he’s going to try again; I saw him again this afternoon, looking at me when I was in the coop with the chickens. I put big rocks all along the new coop, in addition to adding more rocks at the bottom of this larger one where almost all of our chickens are housed. It’s hard since he has hours in the night that he can spend trying to get in.
Wow, I didn’t know we had mongoose here in Israel! We had neighbors who lost their chickens and rabbits to coyotes here in the city, and it was very hard on their kids. I hope you can keep your chickens safe and happy.
(Personally I never found Riki-tiki-tavi endearing. His bloodthirsty nature comes through clearly even in a children’s story.)
And I didn’t know there are coyotes in Israel, Shoshana!
(I appreciate that feedback on Riki Tiki Tavi.)
I think we find Riki-Tiki-Tavi endearing because who wouldn’t like a character that kills snakes and protects children? But it is clear that Riki-Tiki himself is, as you put it, naturally vicious. (In the 19th century Indian setting of The Jungle Book, that was probably not a negative.)
Oops, my mistake! They were jackals, which are endemic here, and closely related to coyotes. We’ve even seen them scavenging from the garbage in middle of the neighborhood at night.