Chickens disappearing.

[RgrMedic]

Hello,
Recently I've had 3 chickens disappear from their coop. They are were put up at night but when I let them out in morning I'm one short. This just started about a week ago. No feathers, no scratch marks around building nothing. It's a tin building set on a concrete floor with tin sliding run door. There are no holes that anything of size can get thru and if there are holes they are covered with chicken wire in order to facilitate air movement. Any ideas on what can be taking off with my chickens? Feathers and all?

 

[enola]

What do you mean by put up?

 

[RgrMedic]

Put up as in settling them into their coop.

 

[enola]

Are all entrances securely fastened? Or locked?

 

[RgrMedic]

The only door is an actual house door so it latches but I also for added security added a hook latch to it. The chicken door is a 1ftx1ft door that is secured at night with a tin door that goes 6in below floor lvl. This chicken door opens out to the run, which the run door is also secured at night as an added lvl of deterrent. The only unsecured entry is at the top of the roof where I offset the roof apex tin cap 2in to allow warm air to escape. The entire building is metal so it can't be climbed.(unless they have suction cups attached to their legs). Whatever it is prefers the Barred Rocks...

 

[enola]

Sounds like a human predator to me. Try putting a keyed lock on your door. I have a lock on my coop because I have a two legged egg thief!!

 

[drumstick diva]

Maybe you need to set up a game cam to find out what's going on. Is the coop close enough where you could hear something upsetting the birds? Do you think the predators could be of the two-legged variety?

It doesn't happen as often, but sometimes people do take chickens for their own use.

 

[RgrMedic]

I live on a farm, I would like to think that two legged critters wouldn't be an issue. Game cam was actually going up today. Talked to my farm neighbor whom Has chickens and he's caught 2 black snakes in his coop that were over 5ft long.... A snake that large would have no problem eating a chicken I would venture to say, especially since my chickens are not full grown as of yet. And that's the only thing that I think could get in!

 

[RgrMedic]

Update... Literally decided to do a walk around of the coop and check out the barn that's about 80ft from coop...to my surprise there was a skunk AND a possum hanging out in there. Feathers from my Barred Rock all over... This problem will be rectified since I have no doubts they will return for an easy meal...

 

[tcstoehr]

Update... Literally decided to do a walk around of the coop and check out the barn that's about 80ft from coop...to my surprise there was a skunk AND a possum hanging out in there. Feathers from my Barred Rock all over... This problem will be rectified since I have no doubts they will return for an easy meal...

But will that "easy meal" be another live chicken or an already dead one? Your real problem is that animals apparently can get in and out of your coop taking chickens as they please. You need to address that ASAP.