3 chickens killed in LOCKED coop

cosso

Hatching
7 Years
Apr 30, 2012
2
0
7
I was sad to find my 3 young chickens taken from their coop overnight. All that was left of them inside the coop were 3 feet and one wing. Shockingly, it wasn't as bloody as I'd expected but clearly it seems their bodies were taken out mostly in one piece. It was horrible! Nothing burrowed beneath the coop, no locks were undone on the coop or pen. There is however a 4"-5" space that runs the perimeter of the pen and coop at the roof line that was left for ventilation. This space was NOT protected with wire. This is the only way a predator could have come in to the locked coop. What kind of animal could have done this? I believe it was a hawk, but my friend believes it was a fox. Both are in the area.
 
i think the list of critters that could have scaled the wall & climbed in through the top is pretty long. depending on circumstances it could have been a possum, raccoon, snake, weasel, & i'm probably missing some.
maybe staple some hardware cloth along this vent.
sorry for your loss.
 
Thank you both. I never imagined that a land animal would have scaled the wall instead of trying to burrow below the coop. There was NO sign of even an attempt to get in from ground level. The man who built the coop is coming to close the space this weekend but with wire, not hardware cloth. I hope it's strong enough. I can't go through this again. I'd only had them for a couple weeks, we're REALLY newbies at this but I want to make it work!
 
Raccoons are very resourceful and I've had them find the ONE opening in the entire coop about 4 inches by 4 inches and get in and kill a chicken.
 
I hope you have decided on hardware cloth to close those gaps. This same exact thing happened to me and we used chicken wire to close it up. ( newbies, not knowing) A weasel came back and killed the rest of my chickens the next night. They can get though the holes in chicken wire effortlessly.
 
you might want to set a live trap and catch what ever it is that is killing your chickens....because they will be back!
 
Please have him use the heavier gauge hardware cloth, critters can shred the flimsy chicken wire way too easliy
 

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