Hello, I live in southern New Hampshire and we are new to raising chickens. Yesterday afternoon I returned home to find 6 chickens missing. Upon further investigation we found five of the six scattered over our 2 acres of unwooded property and one chicken was completely missing. THis is not the first time we lost chickens, a few weeks ago we lost six overnight but attributed that to foxes or coyotes because there was no remains left only small piles of feathers. We are pretty sure that the most recent occurance happened during the day and are not sure what would remove the heads and leave the bodies. We have a pen and coupe but have been leaving the door open for them the free range during the day.After we lost the first six we placed a radio out at the coupe which we play during the nighttime and also have a light. THis worked great for keeping the animals away at night. Any suggestions on what would do this during the day and sctter the remains so far apart.
So sorry to hear about your chickens. I'm afraid the only advice I can give you is to either keep you chickens locked up day and night in a predator proof coop and run (which can get expensive) or set a trap. I put off the trap idea myself, as I'm an animal lover and I hate killing things, but after losing quite a few chicks and then 2 hens, we borrowed a trap from a neighbour and caught a few beasties. Haven't lost a chicken since January.