I am new and have been reading through the forums to try and figure out what has taken and killed for sure at least one of my chickens. We live in the mountains of NC. Today we went down to clean the barn and found that two of our chickens were missing. They are free range so I figured they were just off together and would come back when night fell to roost. Well, went to lock up at dusk and no sign, but the 3 left were roosting for the night. So we started our search and found a few feathers, then 30 minutes later we found what was left of one chicken. Basically everything was gone except the feathers and one part that needs to be identified in the daylight. We do have coyotes in the area, but have never seen them on the property. Any idea what could have done this? We were gone for the past week and took our dogs with us (the great pyrenees and the inlaws stayed to take care of the chickens), I was thinking maybe the coyotes got brave enough since the dogs were gone? Two are newfoundlands and one is a great pyrenees. Our dogs could not have done this because the chickens free range in a pasture not accessible to the dogs unless we allow it, and even then they are never unsupervised. I also noticed some paths through the growth, could be cause by deer, but looks like it could be coyotes? I can post pics of the remains if that would be helpful, but I just wanted to know what we were up against. Thanks for any help.
