Lost a chicken - to who, I wonder?

[otterbrook]

We lost a chicken this weekend. Our little flock is free-range, but has always stayed fairly close to their coop. Recently, however, they started wandering the the edge of the woods and pecking around in the underbrush. Well, on Sunday something got one of them. There were a whole bunch of feathers on the ground in one area at the woods edge, but no other signs of who got her. Could it have been a fischer cat? We have seen one in our woods, and perhaps it came down from a tree, grabbed poor Snowy and climbed right back up. My husband thinks it was a bird. I'd really like to figure out who the culprit was - any ideas?

Anyway, we are all very sad as this is our first loss. And for now, the girls (and the roo) are stuck in their coop and small run until I figure out how to keep them out of the woods. Any thoughts as to how to convince free-range chickens to stay away from dangerous areas?

 

[LynneP]

This might help:
http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/issues/2/2-4/Gail_Damerow.html


So sorry about your lost one- but when you free-range it's so risky. We have fishers here too, part of a repopulation program and we have raccoons, skunks, coyotes, foxes, raptors...bears!

No free-ranging for us!