NO Head Or Wings....daytime kill....what is it?

[brahma momma]

Found 10 month old rooster outside of chix yard. no head, no wings! rest of bird was fine.......does anyone know who's
trade mark this is? Was in day time. Thank you for any help

 

[boskelli1571]

Hi - sorry for the loss

My best guess would be a hawk. They usually eat the entire bird and leave just feathers, but maybe it was disturbed?? Sue

 

[brahma momma]

The head gone was the weird part. (It is my neighbors birds.) they have 2 dogs. We are in country. Have hawks, owls and Eagles also.
I just thought they would carry bird away to eat.

 

[boskelli1571]

Me too. The Storey chicken book gives a list of predator 'marks', reading through it, it could be an owl or raccoon also. Hard to know really, keep the gun handy in case it's a raccon....

 

[aart]

Head gone is not unusual....but wings gone I find perplexing.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

The missing head could be almost any warm blooded animal. Both wings missing makes me think of a dog who will usually just play with or pull odd parts off of a live chicken until the wings quit flopping and the squawking stops and then a dog will loose interest in the still body.

Hawks tend to pluck the feathers off of the chickens they eat like you or I would peel an orange leaving a mell of a hess of small feathers behind.

 

[Noobchick]

I would consider black vultures. I've been having issues with some attacking my chickens (yes, black vultures will attack live animals; turkey vultures won't). Thankfully, so far I've managed to interrupt the attacks so my girls have only had feathers ripped out, but the vultures seem to go for the chickens' head, back, and wings when they attack.