I live on a farm, we have chickens, we started losing some chickens every other day . I got ahold of some leghold traps and have been setting them up in one of the coops, the coop where what ever was killing them could get into. In 1 week I have trapped and killed two raccoons, last week it seems like the animals have gotten more aggressive and killed more then half of our flock, forty five chickens, multiple chickens each night. I set more traps out and have caughten three more coons, but they are little babies, I left the window open one night and listened, I hear howling, I thought it was our guard dogs that we keep in with the alpacas, but it was a high pitched howl, too high for our large dogs. So after getting a job at my grandfathers company, I have spent well over $350, thats alot for only making $7 an hour and limited work because I am 15, I am out of money and will not be getting any for some time. I have bought a new gun, a SAVAGE MARK II G with a 3-9x40 Bushnell scope , a lil dog caller, 36 grain stinger bullets, and some camouflage, but i have another problem, I have never hunted anything larger than a rabbit, I dont know what to do now, this morning, I went outside at 5, sat in a poorly made stand, trying to call them in, but the only thing I can call in is deer, me and my flock would appreciate it if somebody will help me with this very large problem before all my animals are gone.
TJ

Coons as well as weasels will destroy a flock of chickens. They will kill just to kill. A fox or coyote will take a chicken and eat it, and run off.

The coons and weasels tried to do the same to my birds, but they meet up with a .22 to the head.

Try closing the coop door at night until you wipe out the coons.

I wish you luck.

depending on where you live it sounds to me like you may have a problem with feral dogs.
a few years back there was a pack of feral dogs around my house and they will kill just to kill.
i shot them all and most of them tested positive for rabies, so watch out and be carefull.
good luck. also you might try looking for tracks around the kills and following them.

Thank you both for your help. I have seen some kind of dog back by my chicken coop a couple months ago, they are large, one was reddish brown and the other was all black, but i havent seen them for some time now. My house is surrounded by the nature preserve, which is about 582 acres, but i do stay on my property when i am hunting, im not going to go kill everything in the nature center, only those dumb enough to come on my property. I have killed 3 more raccoons this morning, and they were pretty big, can raccoons or dogs rip off fences(wood door covered with fence) and open gates(the gate is closed with objects propted up against it)

i used to have this same problem we would set up about 20 traps a nite and would come out and all would be set off and we would have like 15 coons or so and still have like 20 dead chickens so what we did was got some birdshot and a 12ga and called the local police and told them what was happening and that we were going to be shooting afterdark when they were in the pen going after them and about every half hour we would step outside and shine a spot light on them and kill coons every single night stack them up like cort wood it sounds like if you are getting little ones you have a bunch of mom coons and babies and she is teaching them to come in and kill and you are getting hit worse because now more of them are coming in so that is more coons to do the killing so your best luck would probably to still set traps and to stay up and shoot some coons, if the dogs are wild or strays they could also be what is doing it but you should see dog tracks around and i would think they would do that more in daylight then afterdark but we have had them rip right through fence before a coon is smart animal they have found ways of moving cement blocks we had used to prop the door on are chicken coop to me it sounds like you have to many coons and need to think them out

Are coons color blind like dogs? could i use a light with a infrared lens? If i can, do you have any idea where to buy a cheap one?

i have no idea at all if they are color blind just use a regular light that you can see good enough to shoot but be ready because sometimes they will run and sometimes they will stand there and look at you

i use the same spotlight i use for shining deer, but i spread some red plastic wrap over the lens, then i shoot them with a .22

I didnt think that you could put red plastic wrap over it and it still work, i did that and shined it around my dogs and they saw it real well.

we just used a shotgun so if they ran they were DEAD

i have found that it doesn't spook the coons as much as a regular light does, but to each his own.

I would either trap them or shoot them. If you have a trail cam set it up and see what time they are coming. Then, when you get them patterned set up at that time and shoot them. Also a trail cam will tell you for sure what all is coming