Disgusted and angry....

[lcwmt]

Normally, cats kill one at a time and eat it, if still hungry might come back... They are not a pack animal and don't leave the kind of carnage seen here. This is the work of large dogs, probably within 5 miles of you, or if you are in an area where camping is nearby, perhaps from a campsite. The tracks left are clearly from very large dog, probably weighing at least 100lbs.

In our neck of the woods, bobcats and mountain lions will take their kill up a tree or into the rocky areas. They do not eat at the site of the kill.

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

Due to the size of prints I'm still going with wolf. Inhave large dogs and the prints are not close to being that large. It could have been a practice hunt interrupted. Coyotes, wolves, etc show the young how to hunt. I'm pretty sure they got the eating part down pat. Maybe something came along and spooked whatever it was before it could eat anything. I would think that would be case no matter what it was. Or the kill was made and whatever it was went back to grab their babies to eat but somehow got interrupted and couldn't get back to the kill to feed.

I have giant breed dogs and they can make some really huge tracks.

To the op, I'm really sorry this happened and glad you found out what did this. I hope you can get some closure.

 

[Howard E]

It saddens me that folks like the OP have to go through something like this, and especially when it doesn't have to be so. Such losses are preventable.

Once again, the problem is free ranging. Most of us are smart enough to know we can't leave the door on our chicken house wide open at night (or remove the door completely), yet some persist or insist on letting their birds free range, which means leaving them at the mercy of chance to see if they can get past all manner of carnage that is coming for them. It is almost inevitable that free ranged birds are going to be killed. It baffles me that folks do not understand this. Daytime protection being every bit as important as night.

The best solution for daytime is not to free range, but to yard the birds. Yarding means provide a zone of protection for them. And the absolute best of these is an E fence.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/dogs-and-electric-fences.1210854/

 

[cmom]

I totally agree. If and when I do let my birds out of their pens into the pasture to free range, I am out there doing some kind of work so I can keep an eye on them. I love the electric wire that go around my pens and coops. I have game cameras and there is usually a predator lurking somewhere mostly after dark but I have seen some during the daytime. All of my coops have large pens, each pen is around 20ft x 60ft.

 

[BreanneRN]

In our neck of the woods, bobcats and mountain lions will take their kill up a tree or into the rocky areas. They do not eat at the site of the kill.

My only experience was with mountain lion killing/eating my sheep. They were pretty good sized sheep, the lion cleaned out the body cavity and ate the organ meat where he made the kill and left. A day later, coyotes came and cleaned up the rest. This was in a relatively urban, well developed area, and not common to have a mountain lion, but one had been spotted on the bike path about 1 1/2 miles away. It killed 3 of my sheep total, I reported it to Fish and Game and they took care of the problem... No apparent attempt to move the body. I buried the 1st one he killed, but the 2nd got eaten by coyotes because it got left overnight (I didn't immediately feel up to burying another one and was busy trying to figure out what did this). By the 3rd body, the coyotes were following the cat pretty close and cleaned up the remains before I found the body the next day. This is the body that the fish and game observed. They warned me to keep my pets locked up at night (dogs and cats). I had told my neighbor down the street to keep his sheep safe... He was the one that told me when they eliminated the problem.

 

[lcwmt]

My only experience was with mountain lion killing/eating my sheep. They were pretty good sized sheep, the lion cleaned out the body cavity and ate the organ meat where he made the kill and left. A day later, coyotes came and cleaned up the rest. This was in a relatively urban, well developed area, and not common to have a mountain lion, but one had been spotted on the bike path about 1 1/2 miles away. It killed 3 of my sheep total, I reported it to Fish and Game and they took care of the problem... No apparent attempt to move the body. I buried the 1st one he killed, but the 2nd got eaten by coyotes because it got left overnight (I didn't immediately feel up to burying another one and was busy trying to figure out what did this). By the 3rd body, the coyotes were following the cat pretty close and cleaned up the remains before I found the body the next day. This is the body that the fish and game observed. They warned me to keep my pets locked up at night (dogs and cats). I had told my neighbor down the street to keep his sheep safe... He was the one that told me when they eliminated the problem.

What a difficult situation for you.
Glad that F&G were able to help.
I live in an area where wild life habitat has not been constricted by over development (This is a very rural, low population county: ranch land, BLM, Forest Service).
I know that coyotes behave very differently when their habitat is pressured, am not surprised by your account of the predation and clean up.

 

[BreanneRN]

What a difficult situation for you.
Glad that F&G were able to help.
I live in an area where wild life habitat has not been constricted by over development (This is a very rural, low population county: ranch land, BLM, Forest Service).
I know that coyotes behave very differently when their habitat is pressured, am not surprised by your account of the predation and clean up.

I don't think the coyotes were "pressured", just smart! They, like us, are a weedy species with good adaptation and survival skills. If they can get an easy, no risk of injury, dinner from following a mountain lion around, they are going to. I am sure that they did not kill my sheep, because, they were always there in the neighborhood and never had, even when I had one that had been shot, that I took care of in the field, that was unable to get up off the ground for 3 days. She did make it, but after that had to get down on her knees to eat due to a permanent neck injury. I had her for several years after. Not surprisingly, that was the first casualty of the mountain lion attack...

 

[lcwmt]

I don't think the coyotes were "pressured", just smart! They, like us, are a weedy species with good adaptation and survival skills. If they can get an easy, no risk of injury, dinner from following a mountain lion around, they are going to. I am sure that they did not kill my sheep, because, they were always there in the neighborhood and never had, even when I had one that had been shot, that I took care of in the field, that was unable to get up off the ground for 3 days. She did make it, but after that had to get down on her knees to eat due to a permanent neck injury. I had her for several years after. Not surprisingly, that was the first casualty of the mountain lion attack...

Oh, sorry for my miscommunication.
It is usual for coyotes to clean up after larger predators, just as the eagles, ravens, magpies each have a role in cleaning up carrion.

love your phrase "weedy species"> Yup, we are that.