Hey everybody, I have a question I'm really hoping to get answered. We raise backyard chickens in the city. This morning, we found two of our chickens dead: one Buff Orpington and one Golden Comet. I believe they were killed around midnight, because I heard them making a lot of noise around this time. I didn't get up and check on them though, (which I now regret), because some of my hens lay at odd hours, including at night, and when the noise eventually stopped, I just thought that she had finished laying. The really weird thing is that all of our other chickens (we had 6 before these two died) were still in their roost, and I don't think that if a predator killed our two chickens they would have left the other 4 alone. I also don't know how a predator would have lured our two hens outside of their roost. Our chickens are also in a fenced-in enclosure with a mesh covering over the roof, making it difficult for any predator to get inside.This makes me think that maybe our hens killed each other. There was obviously a struggle, since feathers are all over the pen, and even an empty plastic container that we had once used for water had been moved!
We have had a chicken killed before; she was missing her head and her body was split open. We figured that this was done by a cat that had gotten in through the roof of the pen (part of the mesh covering hadn't been tied down). However, these two chickens were mauled and a bit bloody where their feathers had been plucked out, but they still had their heads and had not been eaten at all. This led me to believe that maybe the two fought each other to the death, since that would explain both why they had left the roost in the middle of the night and why their bodies had not been eaten. However, our chickens have never acted very aggressively in the two years that we've had them. The only weird thing that's happened is that all except one of our Buffs has had all of her butt feathers plucked out (most of them have completely bare butts). Seeing how only one of our Buffs still has her butt feathers, I would have suspected she was possibly aggressive, but she wasn't the Buff who was killed this morning.
Please, if you have ANY idea about what happened to my two hens, let me know. I don't know if their sick (none of them have been laying a lot lately), or if something mysteriously lured them out of the roost at night and killed them, or if they killed each other. If they did kill each other, then I have no idea why, and it's driving me crazy!
Anyway, sorry for this extremely long post. Again, if you have any ideas, let me know!!
P.S. Let me know if want any more details.
We have had a chicken killed before; she was missing her head and her body was split open. We figured that this was done by a cat that had gotten in through the roof of the pen (part of the mesh covering hadn't been tied down). However, these two chickens were mauled and a bit bloody where their feathers had been plucked out, but they still had their heads and had not been eaten at all. This led me to believe that maybe the two fought each other to the death, since that would explain both why they had left the roost in the middle of the night and why their bodies had not been eaten. However, our chickens have never acted very aggressively in the two years that we've had them. The only weird thing that's happened is that all except one of our Buffs has had all of her butt feathers plucked out (most of them have completely bare butts). Seeing how only one of our Buffs still has her butt feathers, I would have suspected she was possibly aggressive, but she wasn't the Buff who was killed this morning.
Please, if you have ANY idea about what happened to my two hens, let me know. I don't know if their sick (none of them have been laying a lot lately), or if something mysteriously lured them out of the roost at night and killed them, or if they killed each other. If they did kill each other, then I have no idea why, and it's driving me crazy!
Anyway, sorry for this extremely long post. Again, if you have any ideas, let me know!!
P.S. Let me know if want any more details.