So weird... When I left for work this morning it was pouring out. It was supposed to be heavy rain all day so I let the chickens stay in their coop. Nothing has ever gotten in there - it is pretty impenetrable. When I got home I asked my 6yr old to let them out. Poor choice. One if our 3 two year old hens was dead in the coop. She doesn't have any injuries. They have all been acting completely fine. I locked them in at around 9pm last night. We lock the coop during the day because our trouble-maker goats will get in and eat all the chicken food. The hens fall asleep on the fence or pergola next to the coop and I pick them each up and put them in on their roost. It was about 5pm this afternoon we found her. There is nothing broken on the coop. All doors and windows have individual chain locks and none were disturbed. The one thing I did notice was that there are 2 spots one on the wooden gate and one on the post right next to it, that have seemingly fresh (I can't say 100% though) claw marks. They are up high like something maybe climbed over it. There are scratches on each of the two marks. They look too close together to have been made from the chickens climbing over it - they have gone over it before if the wind blows it shut. The hen is one of my Americaunas and they are both super skittish, to the point that I thought one was going to die when I caught her to clean some poop near her vent one time. Is it too "out there" to think maybe a racoon was trying to breach their coop and she died out of fear? That is all I can think of for a cause at the moment. I am going to do some more sleuthing though...
