just the meat on the necks is eaten by predator

[patrickj]

This has happened twice in the past two weeks. I find a dead hen
with the meat around the necks eaten and nothing else...maybe
some of the head.

anyone have experience with this predator?

 

[Greyfox Farm]

It's hard to tell for sure, but weasel is my best guess. They can get through a TINY hole and will typically bite in the neck area. The good news is they are fairly easy to trap. Check out Youtube for "weasel box." Sorry for your loss, good luck trapping.

 

[qayaqgirl]

If you could give a few more details of how this happened, it might be helpful.
This sounds like it could be racoons. We had several nights in a row where we found a dead chickens (one each night) with it's neck severed, in our mesh summer coop. What we finally realized was that above the nesting boxes was a section of mesh that was large enough that the racoon was able to reach in and grab the chicken neck/head but not actually pull the chicken through to eat. Once we realized this and used finer mesh the problem stopped. But we were able to verify it was racoons because a day later the dog "treed" three of them near our coop at night. Hope that was helpful and best of luck to your girls.

 

[zazouse]

Bird of prey.
Sorry for your ,loss

 

[Pinky]

Bird of prey.
Sorry for your ,loss

^My thoughts exactly, I just seen a video of a falcon doing that to another bird.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

x 3. Every bird I've lost to hawks had its neck and breast stripped :/

 

[gallusdomesticus]

Agree, fits the model of a hawk kill in my experience.

 

[redsoxs]

I tend to think hawk as well.

 

[sourland]

High likelihood it's a hawk.