I'm new and need a opinion on a recent death

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Tricia67

Tricia67

Hatching
6 Years
Nov 5, 2013
2
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7
I found my BB Red bantam rooster dead along the fence line inside the extended run. I have been seeing a stray cat and thought it got in, killed my rooster but couldn't get him pulled out so left him there with this side tore open. It was then discovered that my leghorn hen had blood all over her face and down her neck on all sides. My first thought was the rooster died saving the leghorn from an attack but then after she was cleaned up I realized she didn't have a mark on her, just blood. Could the leghorn have turned on my bantam rooster and killed him? Or, if something else initially killed him would it be in character for a leghorn to go start eating on him? He was the first chicken ever brought home (this past April) and the leghorn has been with him since June and it has always been peaceful. Any thoughts??? Thanks!
 
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Hi From Florida.

Chickens are omnivorous. They are closely related to T-rex - Actually they do look like feathered versions of them. Chickens can be cannibalistic.

I think a cat attack would look differently and A cat is less likely to attack a grown chicken. If it did, it would move it away and feed on it somewhere else. They would also rip out the feathers. I think you have another kind of predator. If the attack happened in the night I would guess Raccoon first because they would grab through a fence and attack and leave the body because they do stuff like that all of the time. A hawk would catch a chicken - dispatch it and rip feathers but most likely fly off with it leaving a trail of feathers. A fox would rip feathers to get to the breast and .... I don't want to get very gory here. If a chicken came up to a dead chicken - they will feed on it. It doesn't make them killers just good foragers. There is a tab regarding predators. I have lost more chickens to predators than I care to think about including rotten neighbor children with bb guns, no adult supervision and idiot excuses for parental units.

I am sorry for your loss. My best advice is to soundly look at your coop and run for breaches and try to soundly shore up any possible points of unauthorized entry so that you can protect your flock as much as you can.

Glad you joined the forum.
Caroline
 
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Thank you so much for your reply. There were some feathers on the ground and his side was completely open. You could see his heart and everything. His insides were not eaten. He didn't have much meat on him at all with being so little. We think it happened around the 430 - 530 in the afternoon area. I had been to the run several times that day, heard him doing his little cocka doodle do thing etc... The sun was starting to go down and my husband and I went to go see them and start tucking them in for the night. Everyone was still out scratching around and in the distance he was laying along the fence line. We have a "fort knox" enclosure for them (nothing is getting in) but there is an additional extended run with about 200 feet of fence line for free ranging. He was along that fence line. We have never seen any raccoons, possum, skunks etc.... We know they are there but we also compost and nothing has ever gotten into the fresh compost we put out. Nothing gets into the bird feeders but the birds etc... we have been pretty lucky but this is our first winter with the chickens and I am sure once the wild animals really get hungry and figure out they are there we will see more evidence. Again, thank you for the input. I was just trying to figure out what in the world could have gotten to him and if my hen actually could have started eating him. I guess so.
 
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Sorry for the loss of your rooster.
 

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