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Quote from the original poster, on page 4 of the thread:

For those who missed it, there's a post on page 4 where the OP decides for sure what predator was responsible:

I hadn't realized that some of them have different numbers of claws--good point! In this case, OP already found out for sure it is a bear. The post was hiding on page 4 of the thread:

I've had similar trouble when I skim-read things :) This thread got featured in the weekly email, so it got quite a lot of responses from people who read the first post and maybe not much more. Since the answer was in the middle of page 4 (yup, it was a bear), I've been copying & reposting it...

I think it's fairly common for people to read new posts after their own, even if they didn't read the previous 10 pages. (I think that partly because I see people "like" posts after the one they made, which tells me they read those later posts.)

Copy of a post from the original poster on page 4:

OP followed the trail of feathers and found bears:

The answer is hiding on page 4 of the thread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_(animal) Member of the weasel family, males up to 8-13 pounds, according to wikipedia. I would say maybe, except for this: Following the feather trail and finding a family of bears at the end sounds rather conclusive to me :)

Um, be careful with that idea. I'm especially concerned about the pistol suggestion--unless it will KILL a bear, you are safer not using it at all. An injured bear, or a mother whose baby just got injured, is very dangerous.

If it was just the hardware cloth, I might think it was done by a big dog. But I don't think it would leave scratches like those, and I think a dog probably would have made a lot more mess when killing the chickens, so probably right to suspect a bear.