My Pullet Was MURDERED !!

[mothrhen]

My chickens chase squirrels!! I guess they are extra bad a**! I think a squirrel is an opportunistic eater but would have to be really hungry to kill a large chicken or extra bad a** as well. My vote, raccoon (that will return for seconds)

 

[epeloquin]

If it was a racoon, why did it not take the whole chicken, why only the head?
A racoon could have easily climbing the fence.
Plus I would also like to mention that my dogs killed a squirrel in the yard a few weeks ago.
I thought the squirrel was there because of the chicken feed.

My boss says it may have been the Chupacabra

Raccoons never take the whole chicken and never eat the whole thing. They normalle eat the head and/or the crop. You attack looks like a 'coon or Opossum, more likely 'coon. Definitely NOT squirrel.​

 

[epeloquin]

Quote:
Your post indicates that your great-grand parents are still alive. That can't be possible because your gr. grandfather would be 119...or did I miss something?

 

[dainerra]

Quote:
Your post indicates that your great-grand parents are still alive. That can't be possible because your gr. grandfather would be 119...or did I miss something?

actually, he passed away at 103. He taught me most of what I know about livestock until then.

Didn't say he'd told me recently.
His daughter (my grandmother) is still alive. She just got remarried 2 years ago. I honestly couldn't tell you how old she is; she's been 39 since I was 5

 

[Redcatcher]

Squirrels are opportunists and they will eat whatever is available to them or is easily caught. I don't believe a squirrel would have the strength to grab hold of an 8 week Austrolorp pullet long enough to kill her. I wouldn't say it's impossible though. Here is a video of a squirrel trying to eat a good sized snake. The squirrel appears to be fat and healthy but has a taste for blood. In the end, he's not successful but has inflicted some very serious damage to the snake.

 

[MEchickenfarmer33]

Sound like a coon. I know that squirrels will not do this. My neighbors chickens killed a squirrel before. Coons will eat the head and crops but nothing else

 

[galanie]

If a squirrel pulled the head off a chicken I don't want to see the size of that squirrel. Seriously, they might eat something already there but one can't possibly pull a chicken's head through the wire against it's will and pull the head completely off. Unless those GMO's have created Super Squirrel.

 

[Redcatcher]

It's slightly off topic but I recall going to Woolworth's 5&10 as a kid and seeing the tank with a hamster eating another hamster in the corner. Its head was gone. I don't know if it had died or the other killed it. This was about 50 years ago and I've never forgotten it.

 

[OnBorrowedWings]

Paul, me too!
In my case, it was the Woolworth mice eating each other. Made a big impression on me.
_______________________________
www.madcap.name

 

[DanyyChicken]

Chipmunks too. My son and I saw a chipmunk running along our farmers wall last year in the summer. He was very close to us when he stopped and starting eating something he was rotating between his paws. I had thought it was a nut of some kind but upon closer inspection it was a nestling baby bird. It was very young with no feather yet whether it was already dead and he found it or stole it from a nest I don't know. Thankfully it was dead when it was being eaten but I have to say it was still a gruesome site!