Hello all! I'm new here. Up until last evening, I had a flock of 6 that I called my Golden Girls (2 Plymouth Rocks, 3 Rhode Island Reds and 1 Buckeye.) I raised them from the time they were 3 days old until 3 months. They had been doing great, and of course, I became attached. The girls were our pets. We had intended to raise them for their eggs. Long story short, we had let them free range yesterday for about 4 hours while we ran out. I've done this before and they've been absolutely fine. Typically I only let them free range if one of us is home. I went back to their coop to put them to bed and they were all gone :-(........ We found an area of loose white feathers, then more white feathers in the side yard, then in the woods, there was Sophia, dead with her head missing. The rest of her was completely in tact. From what I've read, sounds like a racoon? We buried her and looked for the rest of the girls until it was too dark to look anymore. This morning I started early, and found some red feathers near our shed (it's across the way from their coop. I looked everywhere, tried to follow the feather trail and this time, nothing. I don't have much experience with chickens other than when I was a child, I raised 2. I had been doing my best this time around to keep them safe and happy. Am I being completely naive to think that there may still be 4 out there and they might come back? From the feathers that were found, it would appear that 2 had been attacked. I feel terrible, like I failed them. I should have put them away and not let my guard down. I'm completely sick about it..... Thanks in advance for your help. Southwest Ohio.