- May 12, 2014
- 1
- 0
- 7
Hello all,
I'm sorry, I haven't made an introduction post yet, as I'm afraid we may no longer be chicken owners
We acquired our flock accidentally and over time when various people for various reasons could no longer take care of their chickens, and we had the space and the willingness to house them. Until last week, we had five chickens (a couple of others had died previously), of which only two were still laying, the other three were enjoying their retirement, and we were enjoying all of them.
We let them roam around the garden on most days, and last Thursday my partner came home late and forgot to close the coop or check on the girls (I wasn't there that night). On Friday morning we found a huge pile of feathers close to the back door, most of them belonging to our two speckled hens - there were so many feathers that we think that the predator, most likely a fox, killed both of them. There were a few feathers from the other three, but few enough that we hope they may have escaped. However, we've been out searching every day since, and there has been no sign of them. The area around the house is lightly wooded, there are a few other houses around. We've been searching under bushes and trees in quite a wide radius around the house, but no luck. We feel terrible and miss them a lot.
My question is, from your experience, is there any chance of some of our girls having survived a fox attack and coming back after several days have passed? Because the feathers were near our bedroom window and my boyfriend didn't hear a thing, we suspect they were attacked on Thursday evening/afternoon, and he didn't see the feathers until the next day because he came home in the dark.
Thank you!
Charlotte
I'm sorry, I haven't made an introduction post yet, as I'm afraid we may no longer be chicken owners

We acquired our flock accidentally and over time when various people for various reasons could no longer take care of their chickens, and we had the space and the willingness to house them. Until last week, we had five chickens (a couple of others had died previously), of which only two were still laying, the other three were enjoying their retirement, and we were enjoying all of them.
We let them roam around the garden on most days, and last Thursday my partner came home late and forgot to close the coop or check on the girls (I wasn't there that night). On Friday morning we found a huge pile of feathers close to the back door, most of them belonging to our two speckled hens - there were so many feathers that we think that the predator, most likely a fox, killed both of them. There were a few feathers from the other three, but few enough that we hope they may have escaped. However, we've been out searching every day since, and there has been no sign of them. The area around the house is lightly wooded, there are a few other houses around. We've been searching under bushes and trees in quite a wide radius around the house, but no luck. We feel terrible and miss them a lot.
My question is, from your experience, is there any chance of some of our girls having survived a fox attack and coming back after several days have passed? Because the feathers were near our bedroom window and my boyfriend didn't hear a thing, we suspect they were attacked on Thursday evening/afternoon, and he didn't see the feathers until the next day because he came home in the dark.
Thank you!
Charlotte