In your opinion what did this

rabiee

Songster
Jul 13, 2018
113
205
137
Upstate NY
Last Wednesday I came home at 7:30 to find one duck and one hen missing. Searched high and low and could only find two piles of my hens feathers at the edge of our property where we stop mowing. On Monday I came home to a pile of red feathers from another hen not more than 10ft from my front door. Searched high and low and actually found more of the red hen (her wing and more feathers) and piles of my other black hen from last week. So what ever got them ate them in the same location, probably 20ft behind our coop in the tall grass and woods. I never found any remains of my duck, I did find her mate in the brook behind the house, and they actually never really go down there (he was ok, just shaken up). The same day we found the red hen my husbands friend came up to set some traps, and scented them with fox pee. Nothing has set the traps off yet, I know foxes are smart, but do you think a hawk could be doing this? Or would a racoon hunt during the day? I know that the first two birds were taken between 6:30pm and 7:30pm and I think the third was taken between 6:30am-9am. We set up a trail cam to watch the coop, and have since reinforced our run, we usually free range with no problem but after this last attack won't let them out.
 
Everything I've heard about foxes is that they will kill your whole flock just for fun, that's why I wonder if it may have been a hawk. Do you think they would catch their food and then carry it to another location to eat? I only found the one wing, no feet or heads left over.
 
Everything I've heard about foxes is that they will kill your whole flock just for fun, that's why I wonder if it may have been a hawk. Do you think they would catch their food and then carry it to another location to eat? I only found the one wing, no feet or heads left over.

This actually is not true. A fox must hunt to survive. If he stumbles upon easy prey, he will continue to hunt it until that resource is depleted. If he kills everything in the coop in one night, he'll cache it to eat on a night he is less successful hunting.
Regardless of what killed your chickens and duck, they need to be confined to their coops/runs for a week or so until the predator moves on.
 
Everything I've heard about foxes is that they will kill your whole flock just for fun, that's why I wonder if it may have been a hawk. Do you think they would catch their food and then carry it to another location to eat? I only found the one wing, no feet or heads left over.
Hawks usually wont eat their prey on the ground as it leaves them exposed. If they cant eat it whole they will carry if off. If they cant carry it off theyll rip off what they can.

Edit: my laggy internet put words before the quote
 
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Everything I've heard about foxes is that they will kill your whole flock just for fun, that's why I wonder if it may have been a hawk. Do you think they would catch their food and then carry it to another location to eat? I only found the one wing, no feet or heads left over.

Not true!
We have camera footage of 1 mother fox and two cubs killing one of my hens and running off with a 10 week old duck. All the other hens scatterd all around the place, but the foxes only took off with them two.
 

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