I would kill anything that got after my Silkies.  A dog, a coon, a bird, a possum (have recently blown one out of a pine tree), a ANYTHING.  And I'd do the same if anything got after my big old floppy Brahmas or my EE's too.  How is anyone going to know that you took a bat and bashed a coon's head in, or blew a possum out of a tree at 1:00 in the morning, or shot a bird out of the air for stalking your birds?  I will protect my flock...any time I have off I stand in the run with my green-tipped hardwood stick, like a shepherd, just daring something to come near my birds.  Haven't lost one yet - everything is scared of me because I can scream and holler really loud and wave my stick around like a mad thing.  Only the hawks aren't scared of me, but they ARE scared of dangling CD's, so I got that one licked too.