What did this to my beatiful Austrolorp? (graphic pics)

Sorry about your loss, it happens sometimes. From your explanation I would think its a hawk or some kind of bird, that's if you have hawks around your area.

I had (unfortunate) experiences with both a huge hawk and a racoon.

The raccoon incident happened at night. It apparently reached in the coop and tore my EE piece by piece through the fence during the night. No feathers left behind. Just some pieces of bones left as evidence.

The hawk happened during the daytime. Swooped down and attacked my bantam. She was paralyzed. I saw blood and she couldn't move half her body. I shooed the hawk away before it did anything else, luckily I was home to protect the rest of the flock.

From your picture, my gut feeling tells me it is not a raccoon. I am plagued by raccoons in my neighborhood but they never come out during the day time. Always at night. It just doesn't look like they would cleanly pluck the feathers off like that either. I think falcons kills and eat on the spot since they can't carry the pray away. That's what I am thinking.

So after a bunch of research today (and way too many gruesome videos) I am nearly certain that this was a Cooper's Hawk.



The evidence that was left looks just like many other Cooper's Hawk predations I saw. The feathers were all pulled out clean and left in a pile right there. The bones and cartilage of her neck were not chewed or gnawed on, just the skin and flesh were missing. The meat appeared to be precisely removed. We have always seen these hawks around but thought them to be too small to take a substantial adult like Susan. We have kept our pullets in a covered tractor until they're grown but assumed that the adults were safe from these particular villains. However, both yesterday and today we spooked a Cooper's Hawk from next to the coop about the same time of day as the attack. She is honestly about 1/3 Susan's size. I think she is the same bird we have seen from time to time in the past. For four years the evidence seemed to support the idea that they were safe. Boy was I wrong. You Tube is full of graphic evidence to the contrary. There's no question that they go after and kill rather large chickens (Austrolorps, Barred Rocks, Orpingtons, etc). These diminutive little birds act just like the overconfident sprite from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons of my youth.



As a matter of fact, the term "Chicken Hawk" was the colonial era name for the Cooper's Hawk because it frequently killed the settlers hens. Granted those hens were much smaller than our modern hybrids but I imagine they had a little more fight in them than our lazy fattys do today. I'm sure Susan put up a fight, as many of the birds online did, but the result was almost always the same. "Winner, winner, chicken dinner". There are even several videos of these small hawks finding a way into a run and walking right into a coop full of 10 or more adult chickens just like the cartoon. Fearless or stupid, it still worked and they got their dinner while all the other hens fled for their lives and piled up in the far corner of the run. Now the real question is "what to do"?

Hawks (and all birds of prey) are federally protected against harm or capture. I am allowed to use "scare" tactics that don't physically harm the bird. I'm not sure how effective any of that will be but we will fight the good fight to try to protect our ladies. For the immediate future, I don't see them going "free range" without direct and vigilant supervision. That does stink but I'm not trying to train her to come get some chicken every time she's in a pinch for something to eat. Meanwhile, we will come up with a plan for reinforcing the coop and run and also look at what makes sense to do as far as a deterrent. I will be posting information and ideas as we move ahead but ANY suggestions or advice are always welcome. Even if you feel motivated to tell me I'm an idiot and my idea will never work, that's fine with me. Please, bring it. I'd rather have my feelings hurt a little than not learn from someone else's experience.

Thanks for the sympathy and encouragement and wish me luck!

Andy

chesapeakechickens said:

We went out to put the ladies up for the night and about half of the flock was missing. After nearly an hour of searching we found all of the missing birds hiding very well and many playing dead. (We've never seen this behavior before) Eventually, Josh found Susan with only her neck flesh eaten. No damage to her head or the rest of her body. Just her neck eaten to the bone from shoulders to her head. This must have happened pretty quickly as she was still warm and we had already been outside looking for more than an hour. Any ideas or insight would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Hawk, right down to the flesh being stripped from the bone while the bones are still articulated, and the poor hen's feathers being pulled out at the scene of the crime like you or I peal and eat an orange.

sourland said:

I'm going with a raptor of some sort - probably a large hen Coopers hawk.

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Agreed , seen this more than once at the duck ponds.
My dogs took this duck from an owl

Regardless of what it was (although I'm going with possum)... the obvious solution for any future losses is better protection against potential ground and/or airborne predators. if you allow free ranging without supervision (as many of us do), at some point there's going to be a loss. That's just one of the facts we have to live/deal with.