I'm a little baffled...

[BayGoose]

I've owned birds for years and haven't really had any predator problems, but I knew it was bound to happen some time. The only thing I've seen recently around my pen and coop have been skunks and cats. I usually witness a skunk hanging around at least once a week in the middle of the night when I look out the window. I have a coop and a quail pen close to my house to help keep an eye on them. The past 3-4 weeks or so, I'm having one of my Gambel quails go missing. One disappears about every other night. Just one at a time. There's no trace of any struggle whatsoever. No feathers laying around. Nothing. Their entire pen is 2 feet off the ground and very secure. Made of solid wood and hard wire cloth. They have a safe area in their pen where they go in and roost at night. Wood is all around them, including the floor. Their run area is made of 1/4" hard wire cloth. I couldn't imagine a grown quail getting pulled through that?? And even so, I'd think I'd at least see a pile of feathers on the ground? They aren't in their run at night. The pen has two doors with locks on it. Just in case a predator would attempt to unlatch it. The roof of the pen does open and is NOT locked, but it is very, very heavy. I doubt an animal could lift it. I'm just confused. And upset. I had 8 quails in there and now I'm down to 1. Just one lonely quail. I brought it inside (even though I don''t like them in the house...), but I don't want it to be eaten. Now I am worried about my chickens out there. What on earth could it be?

 

[centrarchid]

Please show a picture of doors and roof. Reads to me like two potentially vulnerablepoints to a raccoon. Latches themselves may not be sufficient.

 

[SnowPeeOstrichU]

What is the roof made of/is there a way a skunk could crawl through it? Can you post a picture of the coop?
If you have some sort of plastic roof thing I don't know what you call it(like the roof on my coop here is a pic that shows some of my coop https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/image/view/album/6238761/id/5230990/sort/display_order), and there is space between the plastic stuff and the "wall", the skunk might be able to crawl through there. My coop has hardware cloth over the top under the roof.

 

[DianaMallory]

No remains laying around sounds to me like a snake! They eat them whole! Check your coop out it might still be in there hiding!

 

[BayGoose]

What is the roof made of/is there a way a skunk could crawl through it? Can you post a picture of the coop?
If you have some sort of plastic roof thing I don't know what you call it(like the roof on my coop here is a pic that shows some of my coop https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/image/view/album/6238761/id/5230990/sort/display_order), and there is space between the plastic stuff and the "wall", the skunk might be able to crawl through there. My coop has hardware cloth over the top under the roof.

No, it's not like that. It's solid wood on top of the pen. It fits snug against it. But it's not locked or anything because I figured nothing would be able to lift the roof. It is so heavy that I even strain a little to lift it lol. I'll have to post pics of it when it's daylight out. The two doors that an animal could possibly open, have locks on them. But you never know I guess, maybe a raccoon is strong enough to lift something that heavy???

 

[BayGoose]

No remains laying around sounds to me like a snake! They eat them whole! Check your coop out it might still be in there hiding!

Never thought of a snake. I could see them eating a small quail. Tomorrow I'm going to take a real good look at the pen. I just had it built, but I should give it a through look over.