Just a heads up, I unfortunately don't have pictures. This happened about 2 months ago and I figured maybe someone might have ideas.
About 2 months ago, my mother went down to the barn and noticed feather clumps. We have a group of pheonixes that live in the barn and always knew it was possible to lose a bird to predators because they aren't closed in at night. They roost in the barn rafters instead.
However, this is the first Pheonix we lost in 3 years of this and we haven't lost any others since then.
The first and biggest pile of feathers was in the hay stall next to our horses. This is almost certainly where the hen was killed.
But she found the carcass IN the horse stall with a horse in the stall the whole night.
There were feather piles next to the bones. Yes, bones. The bird was picked clean, but whatever killed her wasn't chewing and breaking bones. It chewed around the bones. There was hardly any meat on them at all when she was found.
Anyone have any idea on what may have done this? We didn't have a game camera down at the barn then and haven't seen anything since. Never caught anything besides magpies and chickens in live traps either.
We have lost other birds to coyotes, bobcats and raccoons but the coyotes and bobcat carried their kills off and the raccoons did as well a little distance and only ate their typical portions. Not the whole bird.
I have no clue if my hen was outside wandering around in the dark for some reason or if she was scared off her perch and then caught and killed. She was 3 or 4 at the time and wasn't out of health or weaker than the others.
Just note that this all happened during the night. She was alive at dusk and we found her at dawn. I wasn't home so my mom was the only one that saw the results.
About 2 months ago, my mother went down to the barn and noticed feather clumps. We have a group of pheonixes that live in the barn and always knew it was possible to lose a bird to predators because they aren't closed in at night. They roost in the barn rafters instead.
However, this is the first Pheonix we lost in 3 years of this and we haven't lost any others since then.
The first and biggest pile of feathers was in the hay stall next to our horses. This is almost certainly where the hen was killed.
But she found the carcass IN the horse stall with a horse in the stall the whole night.
There were feather piles next to the bones. Yes, bones. The bird was picked clean, but whatever killed her wasn't chewing and breaking bones. It chewed around the bones. There was hardly any meat on them at all when she was found.
Anyone have any idea on what may have done this? We didn't have a game camera down at the barn then and haven't seen anything since. Never caught anything besides magpies and chickens in live traps either.
We have lost other birds to coyotes, bobcats and raccoons but the coyotes and bobcat carried their kills off and the raccoons did as well a little distance and only ate their typical portions. Not the whole bird.
I have no clue if my hen was outside wandering around in the dark for some reason or if she was scared off her perch and then caught and killed. She was 3 or 4 at the time and wasn't out of health or weaker than the others.
Just note that this all happened during the night. She was alive at dusk and we found her at dawn. I wasn't home so my mom was the only one that saw the results.
