Hi Bosque, I think a coyote would have carried at least one of the birds away as it escaped. I saw one walking down the road in front of my house with my neighbor's chicken in its mouth, that was about 5 am, just as the sun was coming up. They can jump pretty high. Apparently, my 6' high wall is not high enough to keep them out. Were you able to look carefully at the birds? What kind of damage did they have? That can tell you a lot. I'm very curious about what happened since we're likely to have similar predators.