I'm in the UK so we don't have possums or raccoons here. But thank you for your ideas, perhaps that info will help someone else.
I have a trail camera, it's a good idea. So far only benign animals have featured on the camera, plus some cats. I'm still stumped.
I've got a trail camera set up and all it caught were wild birds and domestic cats. It might have been a cat that did it. No weasels or similar caught on camera.
I set a trap down but it didn't catch anything after a week so I stopped putting it down.
Thanks for that article. I've read that mustelids also do this, and I think it unlikely an owl would walk inside a coop through a pop door and drag out 4 chickens. It seems more mammalian behaviour to me. Owls hunt in open space.
This cat looked a bit mangey with some bald patches so I wondered if it was a farm cat, used to hunting.
I did read that taking the heads was a typical weasel/mink/stoat modus operandi.
I have put some motion sensor lights out there, so hopefully that will scare off anything that prefers to...
Thanks everyone for your replies. I set up a large humane animal trap but it caught nothing.
I also set up a trail camera and it caught a large cat on camera sniffing the coop door. The bite marks could have been cat mouth sized, but I just can't imagine a cat would have gone into the coop...
Thank you. My little boy was distraught, because his favourite Polish have gone, as they are the only flock members who let him pet them, because they were so friendly.
One was a white frizzle, and such a ditzy little thing! 😔
I lost 4 of my 8 bantam hens today and I am devastated. 2 Polish, a Wyandotte and a Silver Sussex all dead and my Welsummer is injured.
I will try and give as much info as I can, so this is a long post. I need to identify the culprit so I know what, if anything, I can do to save the remaining...