Chickens are disappearing without a trace...?

[Mary Coleman]

Hey everyone, so lately I've noticed that several of my birds have have started to vanish without a sign of ever being attacked by anything. There's no feathers missing, no crazy squawking that I've heard, they've just disappeared... I have seen a fox once or twice in our back pasture, but last time a fox decided to attack my birds they left feathers all over the place. In this case the birds are just gone with no feathers or anything anywhere. Anybody know what could be happening?

 

[Chickenshoe]

Alien abduction? or neighbors? id vote on the later

 

[coleco]

My guess is the fox. Their usual M.O. is to find "nothing." Parents of hungry kits may just not have the luxury of fluffing feathers everywhere.

 

[Mary Coleman]

The fox I saw does have babies across the road under my friends shed, but he won't do anything to get rid of them...

 

[chickengeorgeto]

The fox I saw does have babies across the road under my friends shed, but he won't do anything to get rid of them...

In that case you have two foxes killing your chickens, a poppa fox, and a momma fox. Soon now you may have 6 or 7 of those cute little furry buggers, all of them hanging around the hen house at Sunup every morning, waiting on their breakfast to wakeup. This years kits will almost surely stick close to their parents until the Autumn of 2016 (about a year and a half from now) because they help their Mother and Father feed and care for next years young. Good luck. Good luck too your poultry too, their going to need it.

One reason that you are not finding feathers is because mom and pop may be carrying addled chickens across the street to their den so that their young can hone their chicken killing skills on your birds.

 

[duckmanjim]

Hawk is my guess! Ive seen them
Snatch a duck so fast and fly off that not a feather was lost! Duck go bye bye in their talons!

 

[fshinggrl]

I'm going to think outside the box with another possibility. How old are your hens? Are they laying eggs? Could they be sitting on a nest somewhere hidden? Sounds as if the fox is the likely culprit but just wanted to put it out there. Good luck!

 

[JanetS]

What about using a game camera? We have 3 around our property so we know what's going on.

Here's a few pictures.

 

[Mary Coleman]

I did see a huge hawk as I drove into my drive way today, but there were two little birds chasing it off.

 

[Mary Coleman]

I found my first clue as to what might be happening. I found my favorite old English game bantam named pearl lying dead on the nesting box table. she only had one small puncture wound on her back with a small bite mark. I found another one of my Broody(in the nesting box) bantam blue laced red Wyandotte on the ground still alive, but very shaken from what had happened. She has a bad limp and some missing feathers. I'm guessing a raccoon... Don't they usually just leave dead chickens? I also am now missing as of yesterday my 3 frieking amazing turkey poults that I loved more than anything, and they too slept on the nesting box table. All the birds that have died or are missing died on the nesting box table, and at night. Is a raccoon a probable suspect?