- May 20, 2012
- 10
- 1
- 22
We have 3 chickens, two of them will be 3 in June and the other is just barely 2 months old. Our Australorp has been broody the past few weeks and I actually have her inside the house now. Normally they are completely free range during the day and get put up in a coop at night. If we don't put them in the coop, they will roost on a car. Last night was one of those nights. In the past 3 years we have never had a problem with anything getting them from off of the cars. When we would go on vacations someone would make sure they had food and water, but they would just roost on our old volvo at night. Anyways..at around noontime today my mom noticed some feathers behind her car when she was about to leave, we looked around the yard and there were 3 more places full of feathers. The only reason I have a little bit of hope about this, is that there was no blood, the younger chicks feathers weren't mixed in and they were only down feathers/some tail feathers. If something had gotten ahold of her, wouldn't her top feathers be mixed in too? I also slept with my window open last night and I feel like I would have heard something..normally they (the chick and the americauna) would go over to our neighbors house and stay over there all day so even if she is in fact molting, I won't know until she does or doesn't come home tonight. Those two have been sticking together all the time since the one has been broody. Sorry this is kind of scattered...they are pets to me and I feel terrible about this just as I would for our cat or dog. We do have some stray cats around, but we live in a fairly developed neighborhood. There is a barren cornfield across from our house, so no woods for quite a ways. If maybe anyone else has had that happen where they saw tons of feathers, but turned out they were just molting, maybe I can find some reassurance in that. I recall the Australorp molting this past winter, but not the hen that's missing. If anyone has any questions that might help them help me figure this out, please ask. I was balling my eyes out at first, but now that there may be some hope..I'll try and hold off on that =/
One of our other neighbors said there's a big black tomcat that's been getting his chicks left and right and that he's going to try and catch it. I think the feathers may have been from whatever got her dragging her around and plucking them out 
