Broken neck - Hawk or rooster

[Lu King]

My husband found one of my full grown chickens dead today. It had a broken neck. My husband thinks one of the mean roosters slammed against it and broke its neck. I think it was a hawk or eagle that was trying to pick it up and it was either too heavy or a rooster chased the predator away. We have about 50 chickens in the pen, and some of the roosters are very aggressive. What do you think?

 

[Emzyyy]

I think a hawk is more likely to break his neck but I really don't know.

 

[Ducklove334]

probably a hawk

I don't think a rooster would purposely kill a hen

 

[Emzyyy]

I would think a hawk would eat some of it though even though he couldn't lift it off the ground because I had a hawk kill my Guinea and it couldn't lift her but still sat there and filled up as much as he could before I got home.

 

[Lu King]

You don't know our roosters, but I don't believe they could have broken a hen's neck on purpose.

Nothing was eaten...just a broken neck.

We do have a couple of small goats in there with them, which may have scared the hawk away. We only have the goats there because they seem to have adopted the chickens and want to be with them.

 

[Judy]

Then I would suspect a goat -- probably an accident.

I haven't heard of a roo breaking a hen's neck, but can see how it might happen. Wouldn't have to be on purpose.

 

[Crystalchic]

that is how my neighbors dogs will kill my chickens

 

[Debi214]

Quote:
that was the first thought I had - dogs will grab hold of them by their necks and when they stop moving let go

 

[Lu King]

I never thought about one of the goats, but that could be. One is 3 months old and the other one is 3-1/2 months old, but I know that wouldn't make a difference, if it was an accident.

There aren't many dogs around. Just one old one from next door that passes thru our property on the way to wherever he goes, but I haven't seen him in awhile. I am pretty sure he wouldn't do it, as he looks like he is on his last leg.

 

[Debi214]

I had a hawk attack one of my chickens but my boyfriend was outside saw it and chased it off. There were feathers everywhere from the hawks claws trying to grab hold of my chicken. She was fine just very scared. Then we had a raccoon attack - I lost 2 chickens to that. There was blood, feathers and I found an egg without a shell in the pen also. I only found one body and it was missing its head and innards. I couldn't get to the body since it was on the neighbors property in a very overgrown section within a fence. My neighbor didn't get home until very late that night so I went over to the property line in the morning to see if the body was still there and it was gone. We have since trapped that raccoon and disposed of it. This is why I thought it would probably be a dog but since there aren't many there it could have been a goat. Or could it be that chickens necks just get really floppy like they were broken when they die from illness? Was there blood like one of the goats accidentally took a bite?