4 chickens vanished! How long to wait?

[blakeh1]

I have 3 br's and 3 gsl that free range every day. I have had them since they were around 4 weeks. They are now almost 9. Since they've grown they wonder farther and farther from the coop(I live on 200 acres). They like to go in an area behind the coop that is outside the fence and heavily wooded and thick. Theve done this for a while now but always come back to the coop area(my yard is 1 acre fenced).

About 3 this after noon I came out and notice only one of the gsl's in the coop and she is chirping and looking around so I investigate and she's the only one in the coop. I look over my goat wire fence and see another gsl in the bushes where they normally hang but no sign of any of the others anywhere. No feathers no nada.

It's now 7pm. I am just curious of the other 4 wandered off or if something could get 4 chickens at once with no sign left at all?

 

[sourland]

I think that you have been visited by a predator or perhaps even a pair of predators. Fox and Coyotes are feeding growing kits/pups now. Hopefully more chickens will return at dusk. I would not free range the remaining birds until this problem has been resolved.

 

[blakeh1]

Yep after doing some searching I found some feathers of both colors ******. I wanted to free range but that looks like it's not going to be an option. To bad they are out of the br's luckily the place I get them still have some options of the same age as mine.

Crazy I was only not outside today for probably an hour or less and it all went down lest then 50 yards from my house.

 

[199787]

9 weeks old is pretty young for free ranging without an adult, or is that just me? Maybe try it again when they are bigger. I know everything loves to eat chicken, but from observation it just seems to me that older chickens have a better sense of danger than the babies. Sorry about your chicks.

Lisa

 

[speedy2020]

You can also train your chickens. When you call they will run to you.