Middlesex farmer warns neighbors after chickens found dead
On a spring Friday morning April 29, Art King of Harvest Valley Farms in Middlesex Township went down to feed his chickens as he would on any other day.
But instead of a pen full of hungry birds, King found a ghastly sight. All 39 of his chickens were dead.
“I lost about $1,000 that night, if you talk about the retail value of the chickens, which were two days away from being butchered,” King said. “It was a lot of work and a lot of time wasted.”
King, who suspects a small carnivorous mammal called a fisher may be the culprit, now hopes to warn his neighbors about the dangers of animal attacks on livestock.
“People are not prepared,” he said after posting a warning on the NextDoor forum for Valencia that circulated on local Facebook groups. “(I wanted) to warn them so that they could reinforce their chicken containment areas better. If they just have chicken wire, it’s not enough. They need heavier wire to keep these animals out, and a 6-foot (high) fence is not enough. It has to be completely enclosed."
King said he found a hole broken through the side of his chicken pen on wheels, which he refers to as his chicken tractor. In his NextDoor post, he described a few of the chickens as “chewed on, but most were just killed.”
The animal that attacked the chickens in the pen also made its way into his barn, where King found 13 more dead egg-laying chickens. Twenty of his egg-laying chickens, which were kept in a different barn, survived.
“Those 13 did not have a single feather pulled out of them,” King said. “He had no intention of eating any of those chickens, he just killed them.”
The Pennsylvania Game Commission describes the fisher, or fisher cat, as they are sometimes called, as a mid-sized carnivore. They are the second largest member of the weasel family in Pennsylvania.
Jason Amory, information and education officer with the Game Commission’s northwest regional office, said an officer investigatated the situation at King’s farm, but that a cause couldn’t be pinned down yet.
“Our officer went out there and did take some samples,” Amory said. “We couldn't determine whether or not it was a fisher or not.”
Amory described the causes as “indeterminate,” but added that a fisher being the cause is possible.
“It doesn’t sound to me like something that would be out of the realm of possibility for a fisher to do,” Amory said. “They’re probably not typical in that area, but there are fishers in the state.”
Fishers were reintroduced to the Pennsylvania ecosystem in the 1990s, after their population declined as a result of 19th century deforestation. One hundred and ninety fishers were reintroduced in six sites in northern Pennsylvania between 1994 and 1998, through a joint project between the Game Commission, Penn State University and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The fisher does have a trapping season, from Dec. 18 to Jan. 2, in portions of the county, but not in the southernmost portion of Butler County. Trappers are limited to one fisher per license year.
Fishers, Amory said, are more likely to be able to break through a fence such as King’s than some other predators.
“A fox isn’t likely to break through a fence like that,” Amory said. “A fisher is larger and more sturdy, and could probably go through a fence that isn’t that formidable.”
Amory said that while fishers generally live in the more northern portions of Pennsylvania, their range is expanding. If they move into areas that are more populated, he said, the chances of them encountering humans or livestock or being hit by cars increases.
“Most of the fishers that live in the state live in the north-central portion of the state, but they are becoming more spread out,” he said. “As their population increases, they need space, and they can be kind of territorial. One of the things that animals need to survive is space. As populations expand, so will their range.”
Whether a threat to livestock comes from a fisher or another predator, like a coyote or mink, Amory said adding stronger fencing to livestock enclosures is always a good idea.
“I would certainly suggest that if you have poultry, you have them in a predator-proof pen or enclosure,” he said.
Farmers also have the opportunity to reach out to the Game Commission for help, Amory added. If a predator is actively attacking their livestock, that predator can be destroyed.
“People can contact the Game Commission, and we put them in contact with a nuisance wildlife control operator if they are having difficulty,” Amory said. “If something’s actively attacking your chickens or livestock, you can destroy it for that reason. You can also ask to work with a game warden who would try to assist with that and point you in the right direction as to resources.”
Art King, in the meantime, is rebuilding his chicken coop with stronger mesh wire, and has already purchased 23 new chickens to replace the egg-laying chickens that died. He plans to order more meat birds in the future.
"Despite the fact that I was emotionally distraught for several days, I am going to get more chickens, but that’s the farmer in me,” King said. “When you fail, you just try again, you go again.”
