Chickens killed with only heads eat

[dhopper122]

Okay, with all said, will a Great Horned Owl attack during daylight? I ask, as I suffered another loss during the light of day. And the birds head and neck were missing, as well. Or, was the attack from a hawk? From all I have learned is that the Great Horned Owl is the only raptor that will remove the head and neck of a chicken.

 

[centrarchid]

This time of year when sky overcast owls hunt. They do not always eat head and neck and hawks sometimes do eat head and neck. Hawks seem to do a lot more plucking of carcass than owl does. Generally I cannot tell if hawk or owl did killing without actually seeing predator on or near carcass. The nice thing is both will come back to carcass if you leave it out. Owl is quicker to move carcass to another location.

 

[Hermit House]

We had similar experience with a fox.

 

[centrarchid]

Red Fox removing head for me involves fox trying to take down either a very large chicken or many chickens in one visit.

 

[Hermit House]

The latter, in our case. A number of dead and couple of carcasses dragged away.

 

[rainy sunbow]

Caught a Cooper's hawk in my duck/pigeon pen a few weeks ago. He had eaten the head off my female pigeon and plucked all her feathers from shoulders up. Sadly though, on Christmas something bit the head off one pigeon leaving it nearby and killed my duck and other pigeon -nothing eaten. I'm heartbroken. I was camping. This could have been at night because at least one of the pigeons could have flown away. Stupid predators! Could a feral cat do this? To a duck?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Weasels will do this. I heard a huge commotion in the coop and found three headless broodies in their nests. The weasel was still in the coop, he got in but couldn't get out so he was shot. It was during the winter so it had an all white coat and was very small. I'm not sure if it was an ermine or a long tailed weasel as they look similar. Weasels can fit into the smallest spaces so weasel-proofing can be very difficult.

So will owls, hawks, skunks, (a smelly weasel) mink, (a big weasel) coons, possums, etc.

Only eating the head also may be because the predators' meal was interrupted.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

.... Could a feral cat do this? To a duck?

My experience with cat on rat predation is that the cat starts gnawing at the head and moves down from there, so yes a cat may do that to a duck.

 

[lmccall728]

From reading all the replies it looks like it could be one of many predators. I have not lost chickens except the day after my LGD passed away, but in our area it seems to be raccoon's that kill this way.

 

[Corazon Ranch]

This just happened to me today. Walked into my coop to find my alpha hen, a black Jersey Giant, decapitated in the middle of my (concrete!) coop. We have skunk problems pretty frequently, but there was no smell. So I wonder why it stopped at the head? If it had been interrupted I would have thought it would have sprayed. Cleanly decapitated, too. Weird.

Just when you think you've seen it all...