GRAPHIC What killed my hen? Predator or illness?

[Sic]

This is most likely a mink kill. Mink will attack during the day, and like most predators will go after weaker animals. When it happens outside of a coop, there is usually no sounds, no struggle, no feathers. They will grab them by the neck, puncturing the main artery there and sucking their blood, quickly causing delirium and incapacitation. The birds don't bleed out because of this reason, there is very little blood left unless they are interrupted. You often won't see the two puncture wounds on the neck unless you look for them. Mink and Marten are my ground predators here and I'm very familiar with how they operate. Mink are cute, but they are evil vampires. My poultry are more at risk of a deadly mink attack when free ranging than from a bald eagle attack. We have far more eagles than mink, eagles only go after my birds when they're desperate, and my birds always survive an eagle attack because the birds are too heavy to just swoop away which forces the eagle to the ground where they are quite vulnerable. Oh man, the stories I could tell you, especially one particular duck that survived 8 eagle attacks and one mink attack, that poor girl was as tough as they come.

 

[McChooky]

The weasel dance is a tactic used to distracts their prey .It allows them to get closer and closer to their prey so they can make a successful kill.Again I'm sorry for your loss and hope you trap it before it kills again.

 

[amarsano]

I’d suspect a hawk. They do this in my run. They trap them against the fence. I’ve even had one pull a head through the opening in my fence.

 

[WingsysRoost]

Thanks for the input!

It was only this one bird that I lost, and I haven't seen anything since. I did keep them locked in all day for about a week, but I wouldn't think that would be enough for something to move on. The birds are in an enclosed yard, which is (unfortunately) right next to a pond, but we also have a lot of hawks flying over or around.

I would have thought that if it was a predator kill, rather than something taking advantage of an opportunity, that I would have seen it either come back or seen unsettled birds to indicate that something had been there. It happened in the middle of the morning. If a mink was that bold (or desperate), would it not come back to try again shortly afterward? I haven't seen any hawks watching, either. They've been strangely absent over the last few weeks.

I know that predators don't always follow the rules, but I really would have thought it would come back to try again, whatever it was.

 

[WingsysRoost]

I'm sorry for your loss and think covering the yard will help prevent losses from aerial predators. Considering she was found from with her intestines out through an opening in her stomach she likely died from disembowelment. (A purple comb can be caused by poor circulation and heart attack) Its quite possible your dogs intervened and prevented the predator from consuming it. I wouldn't rule out this attack being a weasel either. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/neck-breaking-disembowellin firstg-constricting-and-fishing-the-violent-world-of-raptors

That was my thought as well.

Would you think, based on your experience, that she died of heart attack or poor circulation before being disemboweled, or that it was being disemboweled that killed her in this case?

I opened the run before I left for work in the morning, so she could have easily come out when the automatic door opened and gone off to hide somewhere if she was having issues, meaning that her initial illness would have been missed. When one of my other hens passed due to heart/organ issues, it happened quickly. I noticed that she was severely unwell around 6 pm, and by midnight she was gone. So it could have easily been something like that in this case, especially considering she did seem to be developing a bit of swelling in the stomach like she was maybe getting water belly (or an infection).

She was also flopped over on her back with her head underneath, which is similar to the way I found my duck when she passed (and I'm reasonably sure she passed due to illness, as I could find no wounds when I checked her). In many of the pictures of predator kills, the birds are in all sorts of positions (probably whichever one they were in when the predator killed them), and I don't think I actually saw any where they were in the exact position that she was. To be fair, I definitely could have missed those, and I'm sure it could happen, but that was something else that I thought was odd. It was almost like she had convulsed as she was dying and flipped over (like what I'm guessing had happened with my duck).

The other thing is that I'm not sure if a hawk would immediately try to take a kill from a mink or weasel. There was definitely a hawk seen in that area shortly after, on the ground, which to me would indicate either that the hawk killed her and was coming back or that the hawk was coming back to an opportunity. This was one of the reasons why I was leaning toward hawk (or death due to the illness and then the hawk scavenging), but I genuinely don't know at this point.

 

[Sic]

Mink are solitary predators and very opportunistic. I don't have a clear idea of how many chickens or poultry you have, and don't exactly know what you mean by enclosed yard. My enclosed run is just that, enclosed - 1/4 inch hardware cloth, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. When I let my poultry out of the run to free range there are no boundaries, no fences, we're on a forested Island. I'm leaning towards you have a fenced yard, but not clear on if this was inside the fenced yard or out. Regardless, it seems that your hens were vulnerable to predation. Mink often kill and do not eat their kill, but others will pick at the carcass. They don't return to the kill unless they have young to feed. Mink will target solitary prey(unless they're getting into an enclosed coop, in which case they will go on a killing spree). I have a drake and multiple roosters, ducks and hens that stay with their flocks are perfectly safe while free ranging. They are never trapped like *sitting ducks*. Those that are adventurous that tend to do their own thing or those that are weak/sick that can't keep up with the flock are targeted by predators. I've learned over the years that either of those are better to be dispatched so as not to put my flocks at risk. It could be as you say, your hen just died and a hawk or something decided to scavenge. However, it would be quite rare to see a hawk attack/kill that didn't leave feathers everywhere and cause an extreme ruckus and leave survivors in a nervous frenzy. Just mho. I don't think you'll ever know for certain, though depending on your circumstances, consider fully enclosing, at a minimum with aviary netting if the hawks are your biggest concern. Sorry about your hen, it's always sad.
Edit note: I have seen a mink grab one of my ducks as I was washing dishes and looking out the window down at our creek, she was only about 30 feet from the flock. She was easy prey, she had previously lost her wings from an eagle attack when two eagles fought over her and pulled her wings off, so she tended to stay under tree cover and not follow the flock. The mink attack was quick, not a sound, no struggle, nothing to alert the flock, if I had not seen it, I would not have known. The dogs didn't know either. I ran out after it and sent the dogs. The mink ran down the beach with the ducks neck in its mouth and into the ocean where it attempted to drown the duck. One of my dogs went after it in the water and the mink only let go and disappeared underwater when my dog got within a couple feet. The duck slowly swam away going out to sea, I thought she might get her bearings and turn around, but that didn't happen. I had no idea where the mink went and I'm in Alaska, the water here can easily kill you in 60 seconds, and I went in anyway. I had to swim out about a quarter of a mile to reach the duck, grabbed her and swam back, probably one of the stupidest things I have ever done, but you know, you do what you do. She had lost a lot of blood, was in shock, and had a chunk of her skull missing because the drowning part didn't go as well as the mink thought, she was fighting back. She survived..some others have not been so lucky. I currently have a mink living about 40 feet from my chicken run. It doesn't bother with my flocks, it currently has better things to do.

 

[WingsysRoost]

Mink are solitary predators and very opportunistic. I don't have a clear idea of how many chickens or poultry you have, and don't exactly know what you mean by enclosed yard. My enclosed run is just that, enclosed - 1/4 inch hardware cloth, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. When I let my poultry out of the run to free range there are no boundaries, no fences, we're on a forested Island. I'm leaning towards you have a fenced yard, but not clear on if this was inside the fenced yard or out. Regardless, it seems that your hens were vulnerable to predation. Mink often kill and do not eat their kill, but others will pick at the carcass. They don't return to the kill unless they have young to feed. Mink will target solitary prey(unless they're getting into an enclosed coop, in which case they will go on a killing spree). I have a drake and multiple roosters, ducks and hens that stay with their flocks are perfectly safe while free ranging. They are never trapped like *sitting ducks*. Those that are adventurous that tend to do their own thing or those that are weak/sick that can't keep up with the flock are targeted by predators. I've learned over the years that either of those are better to be dispatched so as not to put my flocks at risk. It could be as you say, your hen just died and a hawk or something decided to scavenge. However, it would quite rare to see a hawk attack/kill that didn't leave feathers everywhere and cause an extreme ruckus and leave survivors in a nervous frenzy. Just mho. I don't think you'll ever know for certain, though depending on your circumstances, consider fully enclosing, at a minimum with aviary netting if the hawks are your biggest concern. Sorry about your hen, it's always sad.

Thank you for your condolences. I think the not knowing is the part that bothers me the most.

I have a fenced yard. The chickens have their own fenced yard within that, so they can either be confined there if needed or have the space to range in most of the yard. They have a fully enclosed coop and run inside their yard that is reinforced against predators. She was found inside their yard, but the gate was open and they had the ability to go out into the rest of the yard at that time.

The others did seem freaked out after, when the hawk came down to check out the area. Since the initial kill/approach wasn't seen, I have no idea if they were simply reacting to the presence of a known predator or if they were reacting because they saw it kill her prior to that. It did strike me as strange that it went immediately to the spot without actually seeing anything there - she had already been removed at that point, and would have only been laying there for maybe an hour or so at most. To me, that would indicate that it remembered her being there, but it could have seen something else kill her and decided to investigate, as well.

I don't know if a hawk would drive a mink away from a kill, though. I haven't yet heard of that happening before, but anything is possible, I suppose!

I'm really kicking myself now for not having cameras in their yard. If I did, I wouldn't still be wondering what happened. There isn't much to be done about it now, though.

She wasn't usually one to go off on her own. She was somewhere in the middle or top in the pecking order, not bullied or anything like that in a way that would keep her on the outside of the flock, and a fairly large bird. She generally was somewhere near the others. It makes me think that she was sick or something and just hiding it well, at the very least. Her condition could have declined overnight or early in the morning, as she seemed fine enough when I saw them the night before.

Thank you again for your input.

 

[WingsysRoost]

As far as hawks causing a ruckus, I had one sitting on the fence maybe 12 feet from one of my birds. Said chicken didn't even notice and just kept walking along like there was nothing there... Some of mine need more situational awareness, apparently.

 

[WingsysRoost]

Could her comb being purple be from the attack itself, or would that always indicate another issue?

It seems that Google either can't tell me the answer to that, or I'm not using the correct search terms.

 

[Sic]

As far as hawks causing a ruckus, I had one sitting on the fence maybe 12 feet from one of my birds. Said chicken didn't even notice and just kept walking along like there was nothing there... Some of mine need more situational awareness, apparently.

The ruckus was in reference to an attack/kill. My girls rarely notice when eagles are just sitting idle watching them. They rarely even respond to the eagle mafia that drops carcasses of sea gulls on top of them, seems like a threat to me . They do usually notice a fly over, but not always, depends, but when an attack occurs, at least here, all hell breaks lose, eagles screeching, birds squaking, dogs freaking out.. squirrels running wild, lol everyone knows something evil is going down. We don't have hawks, but Bald Eagles are pretty large predators.