Headless hen mystery...

[JNorth]

Yesterday we found a headless hen in her nesting box. We could not find any evidence of her head in the coop, in the enclosed run or around the outside door of the nesting boxes. There were no feathers or blood or any other signs of a struggle. We didn't find any holes through or under the fence that surrounds the run. It is possible for something to have jumped the fence and gone into the coop through the little chicken door, but why go through all that work for just the head? The nesting boxes are accessible from outside of the run but one would have to lift a the heavy lid and hold it to get to a hen. I originally though that maybe one of our kids caught her head with the lid when they gathered eggs but there is no way it would have cut the head clean off and my kids would have been traumatized. We have all the usual suspects...wolves, fox, bobcat, dog, skunk , opposum, hawk, owl etc, thoughts?

 

[tcstoehr]

Yes, it's possible, and it happens all the time.
In the absence of further evidence, you will never know what did it. There are various "head takers" lurking about.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

So sorry for your loss.
Now, for the gory bit - can you describe exactly what the wounded area looked like - or, better still, do you have photos? What I am getting at is did it look like it had been lopped off guillotine style and was just a neck stump or was it more of a mangled bit where the head should be and bits and pieces of structure still there but not an all out neck stump? Was the entire bird in the nest box or was the neck/head area hanging out of the box? One scenario you seem to have forgotten is that the bird died and the flock consumed the head area.

 

[JNorth]

I had considered the idea that she had been eaten but figured for sure we would have found her skull /beak or that her neck would have looked picked at. I don't have a pic, which is odd for me, but her neck looked chopped. Nothing hanging out or pulled. We butcher our own birds, she looked like someone had taken an axe to her. But then I wonder why she was found so still in her nest, she didn't flop and flutter when her head was taken. It happened during the day, I should add. We check on then twice a day. Our daughter collected eggs in the morning and all was well. By the evening we had a headless hen.

 

[rainbowhatchery]

Weasels are the biggest head takers usually, especially when it seems like a sneaky kill because they are stealth preadtors and sneek up and they are small enough they can get in very tiny places leaving not trace of how they got in our out.

 

[Cknldy]

Human predator? If a weasel did it (my first guess too especially if during the day) wouldn't you at least have blood spatter where the chicken was? Main arteries to the head and all ya know? Without blood spatter in the nest box or around where she was found I'd say which human doesn't like you having chickens? Took it from nest, chopped off head and put it back. Just sayin' is it possible?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Weasels are the biggest head takers usually, especially when it seems like a sneaky kill because they are stealth preadtors and sneek up and they are small enough they can get in very tiny places leaving not trace of how they got in our out.

I was thinking weasel too.

 

[JNorth]

Something in the weasel family would be my guess as well, but it's weird to have no blood. Unfortunately I cannot rule out the human predator idea either. We had an incident over the course of a few days in the fall that made us wonder if someone was messing with our flock... odd doors being left wide open when no one had been around. They were the human doors so chickens would not have been able to push them open and one door has a latch. Kept finding chickens on the loose, which is not good since there are dogs in every direction. None of our neighbors seem to mind the chickens, in fact they all benefit from the eggs they provide. However, we do have a rather new to the area group of kids that have been roaming around... and we are not the only people that like to keep out eye on them.

This may just be the push I need to invest in a game camera.

 

[rainbowhatchery]

I think the vote is in, weasel like

 

[JNorth]

If it was a weasel, there really isn't much I can do right? There isn't any way to protect against them is there? Given how small and sneaky they are...