What has killed my chicks and hen, need some suggestions on improving security for the rest of the c

ArmalyNorth

Hatching
Jul 24, 2015
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Let me start by saying that I have enjoyed reading many of your posts over the past few weeks. I just decided to join the forum due to the vast knowledge displayed here.
I live in Northern Ontario Canada and have had chickens off and on for about 20 years. I have had these hens since last fall and all was going well up until this week. I was given these hens by a friend who was moving away. I have never seen this type of chicken before and was told they were Asian; blue green eggs. I also got a Road Island Red Rooster around the same time.
All was well until about 2 weeks ago when my oldest son kicked the Rooster and killed him. He was very aggressive and was going to be used for soup anyway. It attacked everyone all the time. I had many fights with him.
I wanted fertilized eggs to raise new chickens as I only had 2 Asian hens, 1 Leghorn hen and 1 Banti hen. I have done this with an incubator in the past with great success. This time I took several eggs to grow and they started to hatch at different times. The first 2 hatched and were moved to the Brooder. 2 weeks later some more hatched so I moved the first 2 out to the chicken coup in their own heated fenced in area. I worried that they would be to big now to put with the new chicks. By the way, one of the Asian hens and the Banti both decided to sit on the same pile of eggs in a nesting box at the same time. It was kind of cute to see them together nesting so I left them to it. As it turned out their eggs started to hatch this week.

Now here is the problem. My chicken coup is in a separate section of my large garage. They use a window and ramp to get into their coup. They jump up to the shelves from the window inside and then to their nesting boxes or roosting poles.
On Tuesday I went out at dusk to close and lock the window as usual and found that the small fenced in area had been ripped open and both chicks were missing. Also my Asian hen that was nesting was gone and the Banti was trying to cover all the eggs on her own. Some eggs were broken as well. No chicks in the nest any more as well.
I noticed a lot of small feathers on the floor of the coup and outside on the ground. I followed the trail of feathers into the bush beside my garage and found what was left of my hen about 50 feet in. She was on her back on a large rock with her bottom half gone up to the rib cage. All her innards were gone and she was not touched on her chest, wings, neck or head. I did find one chick who was small enough to escape through a crack. She was between to boxes; no sign of the other chick. I also found the small chicks from the nest tucked in a corner behind the nest.
I took them in the house and put them with the other chicks in the brooder. The older chick would not let me put her down for several hours. She just wanted to lay under my chin and rest till 2 AM. Then she was fine to put with the others. I had her in her own brooder at first but she did not want to be alone.
So, what killed my chickens? We have all kinds of animals here so I'm not sure. I looked through the answers on many of the other posts but non matched. We have a huge bear problem here since the spring hunt was stopped. Had one in my kitchen last week. Didn't see my cat for 4 days. I have had Otters in my pond, as well as Mink and Martins. I have many raccoons, wild cats, Lynx, Owls, Hawks, Bald Eagles, Coyotes, Timber wolves, Mountain Lions and roaming dogs. Most of these I don't think could have done it as they would have been to big to get in the open window ( about 1 by 2 foot opening). There were also no tracks outside; wood chips inside so none there either. The culprit would have had to jump up from shelf to shelf 4 feet up to get back out with the hen in toe. So I am at a loss.
Can I keep the larger Chicks with the smaller ones? More hatch every day or so. Was it the chirping of the chicks that attracted the predator? How do I stop it from happening again?

Any suggestions will help
 
I'm not the best chciken expert but it sounds like a land predator here where I live if somthing happened like that I would suspect a fox. So maybe it is a Coyote, Wolf, Wildcat, I had a fox once jump over our 6foot fence and take my rabbit. The animal probably left half of your hen on the rock because your hen might of been too heavy to carry. Anyway Like I said I'm no big expert anything. Hope this helps.
 
Fox or raccoon could've done everything you have described. They are agile, motivated, clever, powerful killers. Even if your chicks weren't chirping, their scent brought that predator in. Killing the hen then getting it outside & eating it nearby doesn't surprise me & the chicks would've each just been a mouthful. Most predators want to pillage in secrecy ie: dark & quiet. Having an alert animal or a guard animal would definitely help. Also the previous suggestion about electric fencing to prevent access to your garage coop is a good one but you would have to constantly be checking it to be assured that it was operational & that it had enough of a "pop" to REALLY keep a predator out. I always turn to protection animals like LGDs because once trained, they are the perfect round-the-clock protection for almost every species of farm stock.
 

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