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[motheroffour]

Hi everyone. I need some input here. I have only have my chickens for 20 days and yesterday I believe one of my hens flew out of the coop and is missing and I have found feather piles in two places. Tell me-is this a hawk or my dog? We are in the process of doing our wire overhead. She was a brown leghorn. I miss her and I just need to know. Let me know what the signs of a hawk kill or a dog kill is. Also there's no body. I've looked in the bush and nothing. If she flew out she jumped on her coop and up to the edge. Getting everything covered to save the other four!

 

[DuckGirl77]

Hi everyone. I need some input here. I have only have my chickens for 20 days and yesterday I believe one of my hens flew out of the coop and is missing and I have found feather piles in two places. Tell me-is this a hawk or my dog? We are in the process of doing our wire overhead. She was a brown leghorn. I miss her and I just need to know. Let me know what the signs of a hawk kill or a dog kill is. Also there's no body. I've looked in the bush and nothing. If she flew out she jumped on her coop and up to the edge. Getting everything covered to save the other four!

Are you sure it couldn't have been anything other than a hawk or your dog? If it was your dog, you would have probably found the hen, and
Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens says a hawk eats the whole chicken right there, so you probably would have seen something in that case, too.
What you're describing sounds to me more like fox or a coyote.
I hope you don't lose anymore! Make sure none of the others can fly out. If it wasn't a hawk, then she probably flew out and got caught.

 

[motheroffour]

Thank you for replying. I was suspecting my dog only cause he was laying there all morning. What stumps me is that I found a tiny amount of blood near the one pile of feathers. Is there lots of blood when is its a dog or hawk? Just so confused.

 

[bigoledude]

It's absolutely impossible to determine what happened to your chicken with just these few facts. If you have the time read as many posts here in "Predators and Pests" about unknown attackers. There is always a multitude of replies and the majority of them are wrong!

The scene of a kill can appear exactly the same if a possum, coon, weasel, raptor or your dog did it. The only ways to know for sure is to find evidence of that animal. Ttracks leading to/from the kill can be an excellent indicator. This can be done by spreading something like diatomaceous earth around the area you suspect he is using as the approach path.

Of course a game cam is the quickest and most reliable tool in identifying a predator. I wish I had a better answer for you but, your problem is shared by thousands of chicken/stock keepers across the country. Those folks who think they can identify a killer by the scene left behind are almost always wrong. Just read a hundred old posts here and decide for yourself if there is clear-cut methods for specific killers Modus Operandi?