Minnesota!

[Bogtown Chick]

Not all cats are this way mind you-->But I think sometimes the well cared for cats that get fed everyday end up "playing" with their potential victims more than finishing the job and having a meal. I also imagine a good sized and strong chicken puts up more of a fight than what they want to deal with. I'm glad chook is okay. Sending well wishes.

 

[cmom]

Anybody have an idea what attacked my chicken? I came home from fishing today to find several piles of feathers in my yard, mostly along the fence. From the color and quantity of feathers I figured my easter egger was a goner, but I found her alive under a woodpile outside my fenced in yard. Several tail feathers are missing as are nearly all her neck feathers. She has a few very small (pin prick sized) wounds on her neck as well.
I believe this happened in broad daylight too since there was an egg from her today, and she usually lays around 9am.Anyone have any insight as to what would mess with a chicken like that and still let it live?My possible guesses are neighborhood cat, neighborhood dog, large bird of prey, fox or coyote. We also have possums and raccoons, but the daytime nature of the attack leads me to think it wasn't one of them.

I would suspect a small dog or a cat. Do you live near any woods? The fact that she was still alive, I wouldn't think it was a raptor, fox or yote. Opossum would have killed it and ate the guts, coon would have taken the head and eaten in, but they are nocturnal, you eluded to. I would set a trap and keep the girls inside for a few days.

I would set a trap also. Do you have a game camera? With a game camera you can see what is lurking.

 

[Vashjir]

I don't have a game camera, but while getting the blue kote I also picked up a cat/raccoon sized live trap and a couple cans of cat food to bait it.

While applying the blue kote I could see the full damage and the feather loss was worse than I thought, half the tail feathers, a fair amount of 'butt down', some underside feathers and one full side of her neck including the base of her head. Thankfully the scratches and bites look superficial on her skin, and nothing looks infected. Still eating, drinking and walking fine.

 

[cmom]

I don't have a game camera, but while getting the blue kote I also picked up a cat/raccoon sized live trap and a couple cans of cat food to bait it.



While applying the blue kote I could see the full damage and the feather loss was worse than I thought, half the tail feathers, a fair amount of 'butt down', some underside feathers and one full side of her neck including the base of her head. Thankfully the scratches and bites look superficial on her skin, and nothing looks infected. Still eating, drinking and walking fine.

I have caught Raccoons with marshmallows and sardines for possums. I never had very good luck with cat food but I have some friends who use it and have had good luck with it. Good luck. Please post the results.

 

[Minniechickmama]

It is amazing what birds can recover from. I have a Dark Cornish hen that another hen went after and did this to her
That is bone you see in the middle that looks yellow. This was close to an inch in diameter of bone showing. I sprayed the wound with BluKote and kept an eye on her. She will have one heck of a scar, and this is taking weeks to heal, but this hen has been laying again in the last couple of weeks and even laid 2 eggs a day twice last week, which is unbelievable for this type of bird who only lays about 100 eggs on average per year.
They are resilient critters. I have yet to figure out which of the others did this to her, and when I do, she is going to make compost. This happened to another bird when they were juvies last year, so I know what happened. I think BluKote is an amazing product and I recommend it to everyone who owns livestock to keep on hand.

 

[cmom]

It is amazing what birds can recover from. I have a Dark Cornish hen that another hen went after and did this to her

That is bone you see in the middle that looks yellow. This was close to an inch in diameter of bone showing. I sprayed the wound with BluKote and kept an eye on her. She will have one heck of a scar, and this is taking weeks to heal, but this hen has been laying again in the last couple of weeks and even laid 2 eggs a day twice last week, which is unbelievable for this type of bird who only lays about 100 eggs on average per year.

They are resilient critters. I have yet to figure out which of the others did this to her, and when I do, she is going to make compost. This happened to another bird when they were juvies last year, so I know what happened. I think BluKote is an amazing product and I recommend it to everyone who owns livestock to keep on hand.

I agree, BluKote is amazing. Over the years I have had birds beat up on other birds and have used the BluKote. Several years ago, I had put some pullets into a flock of older girls. I had two hens that were bullies. I caught one hen really wailing away on a pullet. She was on top of the pullet and I thought she was going to kill her. Originally I did take the bullies out of the flock for about a week. When I did put them back with the flock one was ok but the other was still being a real bully so I took her back out and put her back in jail for another week then let her back in with the flock and she started in again. She was so intent on a pullet that she didn't know I was there. I had a hose in my hand and gave her a good squirt with the hose. She wasn't expecting it as she was really into beating up the pullet. Boy did she ever jump off when she got hit with the water. She ran into the coop and didn't come back out for a long time. I caught her a few more times and always had the hose handy and squirted her when she was being aggressive. She eventually quit bullying. That is when I used the hose and caught her off guard. I guess she eventually knew if she kept it up she would get squirted. She would block the pop door and keep the pullets out so they couldn't get to the feed. I put a second pop door in the coop and another feeder out in their run. She couldn't guard both pop doors.

 

[Minniechickmama]

Personally, a hen like that wouldn't have had a second chance after one visit to jail, but I am sure your situation and flock is different than mine. She didn't happen to be an SLW, was she?

 

[Vashjir]

Well I caught the beastie red handed, and to my surprise it was not a cat, but a red tailed hawk. Woke up today to a commotion in the coop and looked outside to see the hawk pacing back and forth like he was trying to decide what to have for dinner. Thankfully the coop was closed up and the hawk couldn't do anything but window shop. I tossed a few rocks its way to chase it off, but now I need you come up with a more permanent solution, and with a hawk, shooting and trapping seem a bit out of the question. Anyone have any good ideas?

 

[ejb3810]

Once a hawk has set up this as a stop in its territory it will continue. It must be relocated permanently or the problem will persist. You might consult with the DNR, but I doubt that they will be of any real help.

 

[bantiesrule]

I don't know if this will help any but I had a hawk come around last spring. I called the DNR and they suggested to leave my chickens locked up for a week. Being it was spring, the hawk might have just been traveling through and stopped for a few days for an easy meal or two. This did work for me but as I said it was spring.