missing chickens, no sign of struggle

romymgo

Chirping
May 19, 2015
17
6
54
We had our 4 week old hens in a run on our porch getting them acclimated to being outside. We had the run leaning against our wall so the opening was closed out by the wall of our house and covered with tarp and a sheet at night. This morning I saw that the run was slightly moved and 2 of my babies were missing. There was no sign of struggle.. no feathers.. no blood. The 2 other hens were perfectly fine. What could have possibly taken them? I've read that raccoons often leave the carcasses in the place of attack or a few yards away but we searched our whole yard (about an acre) and we didn't find anything. Is this always the case with raccoons ? or could it have been something else? I'm so devastated and this could have been prevented if we would have boarded up that opening (which we did this morning after this happened...=( )
 
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I was thinking of that possibility! I tried moving the run and it's pretty heavy so I figured our neighbor's cat wouldn't be able to do it, I could barely move it and i weigh 130 pounds .. do you think a fox or coyote would be able to move the run to the side enough to enter the run?
 
Sorry about your loss. Dog, coyote, raccoon can be very persistent when they are hungry. Very possible the gained access by pushing against the run to reach in. Raccoons are notorious for being intelligent and have great manual dexterity. The four week old chickens probably never reacted to the danger.
 
To be honest, that was my first impression, that someone took them. I had 2 ameraucana and 2 barred rock chicks and they took one of each... no signs of struggle at all.. the bedding wasn't even messed up.
 
I'm sorry for your loss....
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my husband installed a security camera outside and it recorded raccoons checking out the (empty) coop throughout the night. We locked the remaining chickens inside my husband's shed for the night so they were safe from the raccoons. Our best bet is that it was a raccoon that possibly took the chick back to it's den to feed her babies since there was no sign of struggle.
 

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