New2chickchicks
In the Brooder
- Jun 20, 2016
- 43
- 8
- 44
I am hoping someone can help me identify the predator that took/killed 6 of my 10 chickens today. The coop run door was opened at 5 am this morning. About 12:45 I took a walk back to the coop to collect eggs when I noticed some feathers and a shell less egg on the ground. I recognized the feathers as one of our smaller buff silkies and thought a hawk had been by to take her. The coop had 2 of my girls in the nest boxes so I called the other girls, 2 more came running. There were no feathers in or around the coop or run. I took a walk into my neighbor's yard and noticed a lot of feathers and our golden laced wyandotte's body. I thought I must have been mistaken about the buff silkie so started looking for the other 5 missing chickens. I walked a little further and found more feathers and our black silkies body. I walked to the front of our neighbor's house, about an acre and a half away and found more feathers and one of our polish chickens bodies. There were other spots of feathers but no birds. We have had a hawk attack before and I heard it happening from inside my house the blue Jay's and crows were going crazy, it was a small buff silkie pullet and it's neck was severed and it had talon marks, it was so loud outside though it could not be ignored. I have 2 dogs that will bark if there is another leashed dog walking by but we never have strays in our neighborhood and if there was a dog in my yard the dogs would have barked. I heard nothing, no odd bird noises and the dogs have not made a peep all day. We have hawks at our house everyday and have only had that one issue with the smaller pullet, and again I did not hear the other birds making a ruckus like they do when a hawk is around. There was also no real visible damage to chickens bodies except for the polish which appeared to have a bloodied behind, a puncture to the chest and some bruising. I did not see blood on the other two bodies I found. I still have not found the other 3 missing chickens. I am at a loss for what could have done this and would like to protect my remaining 4 from whatever this creature is so any insight would be greatly appreciated. We live in CT so our main predators are hawks, skunks, fox, coyote, Fisher cats, raccoons, opossum. I have seen fox, skunks and possum near us but we are not in the woods and I have not seen anything regularly or recently. Our wyandotte was a pretty large bird and so was our Easter egger who is missing, the other missing are a smaller buff silkie and another polish. They are often in our neighbor's yard so I am not sure if they were dragged or just over there when they were killed but my guess is at least 2 of them were dragged or they spread out when being threatened by something. The bodies were stiff when I found them but not covered in flies. Also a couple weeks ago when I went out to close the coop, a huge owl was on a tree above the coop and flew away when it heard me, it was dark so I didn't see it but I heard and felt it. I hope this is enough info for someone to figure out what did this so we can prevent future attacks.
