Trying to identify what killed my hen. Graphic puc.

Any carnivore worthy of the name would have chewed, crushed, worried, and consumed the entire hen, especially the head and neck . You definitely have either a Coopers hawk or a Sharp Shinned hawk (aka Blue Darter) working your flock. While the Red Tailed hawk is the most accomplished killer of hens the size of your bird, it looks like the hawk returned time and time again to feed on its kill.

I would put out a live trap with chicken flesh as bait in location carcass was found. I will bet a raccoon, possibly a oppossum will be caught. Kill looks much more consistent with a raccoon's MO than a raptors. I have been documented a lot of kills of all sorts over the years and OP's situation does not look like raptors I deal with.

Every time a raccoon killed one of my chickens, the HEAD was like a hors devours portion and was always gone first.

I avoid using terms "every" and "always" with respect to what predators do. Invested too much effort in studying them to engage in such folly..

Monday evening, at dusk, I was tending the animals outside, and as I rounded the corner of the back side of our house facing the woods, I heard a scream that I thought was from a rabbit meeting it's demise. Which was scary in itself.Then my husband came home, and said that he heard a fox in the woods when he got out of his car. I told him what I heard, and he found fox recordings on the Internet and played them for me. The sound was identical to that made by vixen foxes fighting. Only I only heard the sound once. Only sounded like one animal.
So, we know that foxes are in the woods around the coop. The sound I heard was extremely close. I also saw a large skunk scurrying around the coop the morning of the day that I found the dead hen, from the direction of the area where I found her.
I would think that if it were a fox, that it would have carried the kill off to eat it, instead of consuming it in the open.
Does it sound likely that the hen could have been mortally wounded by a raptor, escaped to hide, only to die and then be found/partially consumed by something else?
I am going to put our game camera up by the coop/run to see what's lurking about.
She went missing on a Monday, and didn't turn up until that Wednesday. How would I be able to tell if she was dead Monday, or if she wasn't killed until Wednesday? Would knowing that information even help determine what kind of predator is responsible? I mean, we can trap/kill whatever is lurking about, but probably won't know if that animal is responsible.

I'm afraid to let our hens out to roam our property now. I can't be around them the entire time they are out.

critterkeeper25 said:

One of our hens went missing Monday. I searched for her everyday. This afternoon I found her out in the open, where I looked several times before. I don't know if she went off, hid, and died, and an animal found her, or if she was a victim of an attack. There was no blood, that I could see. Just lots of feathers. It looked like she had been drug out from under a coil of old hose up against a tree. Many feathers under there, and scuff marks and feathers on the ground from the hose to where I found her. Only the meat on her neck, back, and part of her wings was eaten. She was laying belly down, and the only thing missing from her underside was her skin. All breasts, thighs, legs, and organs were intact.

Any ideas?

Click to expand...

That's a hawk kill

Bird of prey.
hawk probably