Chicken thief mystery...

[CassieCsHens]

about a week ago, my Rhode Island red disappeared. I found no trace of feathers, nor did I ever find her body. I assumed she might have wandered into the neighboring field to join some of my guineas that found a pond a few acres away but she never returned.
This morning two of my leghorns are gone. I found a few long feathers in their coop and a few just outside the door, but in searching I found more and more feathers leading towards my fence line. The feathers actually go up the fence and over (some are stuck in a tree branch that rests along the top of the fence)
It's in appears that the chicken was carried off into the field where a large patch of grass has been trampled in to what looks like some sort of animals bedding.
What I'm wondering is, what could've possibly carried off both of my leghorns over a fence? The entry into the coop is not large enough for anything bigger than a turkey or very small dog to get through, I'm not sure if one leg horn was snatched and the other was picked up several minutes or hours later, or if the creature was able to take them both at once but they both disappeared last night.
Is this something a hawk would do?
By the pattern of the torn feathers it seems like what took them actually climbed the fence with the chicken in tow...
My poor girls

 

[boskelli1571]

It sounds like a fox to me. You need to keep the birds locked up at night or you will have no birds left. Make sure your coop is tight and secure. Whatever the predator is - fox or otherwise, it now knows where there is a free chicken dinner - it will be back

 

[enola]

If the predator was a fox (it probably was) it is hunting to feed young foxes. The chickens will need 24 hour protection. Foxes hunt in day light to if they need to feed babies.

Good luck!

 

[youtubeminer]

I thinks it's a fox or a coyate because they do the same thing grab them and go away carrying the bodie

 

[youtubeminer]

Body I mean