Hen killed by unknown predator (gore)

[annaBsChick]

Have you tried using the poultry predator identifier tool? http://www.poultrydvm.com/predator-identifier.php

 

[cmom]

We do. I just looked it up (North Carolina), but they are fairly rare where I am specifically. Like I said though, I've never had a death from birds of prey inside their run. I dont doubt that it could have been a bird of prey, just in disbelief. Though, in my 6 years of raising chickens, I've never once had this happen.


Yeesh

About a month ago I had a Red-Tail hawk get into one of my inside pens that are all covered and killed several birds, mostly pullets. That was a first for me. Caught it red handed. Over the next few days I lost a few more probably from injuries. I looked the birds over but didn't see any evidence of injuries but a few more ended up dead. I repaired the breach. In total I lost 23 birds. Here are the first few I pulled out of the pen, mostly pullets about ready to start laying.

 

[Chicken Heel]

About a month ago I had a Red-Tail hawk get into one of my inside pens that are all covered and killed several birds, mostly pullets. That was a first for me. Caught it red handed. Over the next few days I lost a few more probably from injuries. I looked the birds over but didn't see any evidence of injuries but a few more ended up dead. I repaired the breach. In total I lost 23 birds. Here are the first few I pulled out of the pen, mostly pullets about ready to start laying.

23 birds - that's rough. I once lost 20 Red Star roosters to a neighbor's dog all in one afternoon. Sorry for your losses and the thread OP's loss too.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

My vote is bird of prey too. Where I live it's some sort of migration thing, they all come here through fall and winter. We get everything from peregrine falcons, buzzards, redtails, rough legged hawks and some smaller species I've yet to ID properly. We had one screaming this morning and one even closer two days ago.

They really like to eat the heads and strip the necks but rarely actually get to the rest of the bird, and often just move on to killing the next instead of eating a lot from the one they got. I lost 3 birds this way on Christmas morning to a hawk one time - caught in the act too. Another time one got stuck in my chicken tractor and trampled by cornish crosses. It was so dazed and muddy that it wouldn't fly off and I had to carry it out of my lawn in my jammies.

If it's not a proper cover for the run like netting then a hawk can get through. The one that go into the chicken tractor dropped in through a door that popped open in the roof that was about 1.5 square feet. I guarantee there's gaps in your trees that are bigger than that. I have trees tight over my run too, and I often see them sit on the lower branches of those trees and just chill. They're super hard to spot but the roo always sees them and gets the hens to cover. I lost so many birds to hawks before keeping roosters.... Now it's a rare death.
If I see them there I'll often throw a snowball at them or if it's warm enough break out the hose. They're illegal to kill or injure but it's perfectly legal to harass them or scare them off.

They're persistent too, though.

 

[Conan]

Goshawk are amazing acrobats. I have found Coopers ate similar. We have a Coopers who hangs around. Its favorite method is to sit in our tree and wait for us to let the chickens out of the run. It doesn't swoop. It drops. I've seen it *walk* on the ground, too. I've not lost anyone to if, but that's only because I've been lucky.

Yep. They are impressive! Very difficult to deter creatures like that with anything short of a covered run.
This is the way of it, though. Everything is always fine free ranging... until it's not.