Poultry Predator Identification

[rannug]

Take a comfy folding chair and spend a few hours in the dark listing to your poultry sleep.  Chickens seldom sleep silently.  An owl can catch mice in total darkness using only the owl's sense of hearing.  Chickens are always squabbling and jockeying with each other for a better sleeping position.  In this respect chickens are much like a flock of 8 year old boys. Stevie Wonder could find them. 

 

[rannug]

I was late closing up the coop, luckily. I wondered what that dark spot was, turned on the flash light, skunk. It went the coop. Check ckens, turkeys, and guineas came out of there like AA missiles. I then shot the skunk. 6 of 7 banty peeps are missing, at least for now. I brought the one peep to the house, and its mama was on the porch. Reunited. Tom heard the 4 Wheeler and came out of hiding. I picked him up and put him into the coop. Maybe the others will show up in the morning. I caused all this myself. Just said to dw a couple days ago that there had been no skunks around this year.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I am sorry for your loss.

Predation can happen in a New York minute as your tail proves.

Keeping chickens unfortunately requires constant vigilance.

You acted correctly, remember that even Fort Knox has armed guards.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Raccoon, right? Could it be a fox?

I let my dogs out this morning maybe at 6:00 a.m. No excitement from the dogs--a very protective pit bull and three mini Dachshunds. All the dogs, especially the pit bull, check out the chicken coops. The pit is looking for animals to drive off. He's killed a big raccoon, skunks, deer, and squirrels. (Surprisingly, he leaves my free-range chickens alone, guarding them instead.) My husband brought the dogs in before he left for work at about 7:10. The dogs were just sitting on the porch waiting to come in, which is only about 40 feet from the rooster's coop. I don't think the raccoon had come before the dogs went back inside the house. They would have been let out first thing in the morning about 6:00. I went out before 8:00 to let the chickens out and found the rooster pulled halfway pulled a fence. I must have not locked up his coop last night. The raccoon had eaten whatever meat was accessible from the neighbor's side of the fence. There is a tract of brush with a dried creek bed which separates our two properties. The chickens were very upset when I let them out--the older hens went up in trees and after I shooed them out of the trees (worrying they would hop over into my neighbor's side of the fence where the raccoons live) gathered under a shipping pallet sitting on concrete blocks (hawk shelter) that is in the middle of the open area. Everyone was really upset. The rooster's body was only about 20 feet away from the main coop and they have lots of screened windows they would have all had a good look at that raccoon trying to get my poor rooster through the fence.

There were some feathers in the rooster's little coop and a lot at the end of the pen. There was a line of feathers from the pen to a spot where a few tail feathers seem to have been pulled out, then another clump of feathers where their were bloody neck feathers. The trail of feathers then went pretty much straight to the fence where the animal got it stuck at the bottom on the ground trying to drag it through the fence.

The rooster had his neck completely severed but that could have been when the animal tried to pull the rooster through the fence. No wounds went into the body cavity and rigor had not set in so I won't waste the meat.

I think this happened in the hour after the dogs came in this morning, a time when my chickens have usually already been let out. I think I'll be leaving the pit bull out a lot longer in the morning and will set up a trap tonight. Could this have been a fox?

 

[jajeanpierre]

I just wanted to share--if you are missing a chicken, even if you find a poof of feathers, don't give up looking.

I heard a ruckus from my free range chickens, went out and found my bantam hen missing. I searched the property and found a tiny poof of feathers in an open area. It could have been from a rooster trying to breed her, but there was a lot of fussing going on by the roosters and the hens had all been hugging the fence lines moving into the bushes. I searched for more feathers, hoping she had fallen out of the hawks grip. My husband joined the search for feathers and he found her in shock wedged in a pile of branches that I had left to rot down and hold back the water in heavy rains.

I think a hawk had missed on his/her first strike (small poof of feathers) and she had run into the brush to escape and got trapped. The brush wasn't high enough to keep the hawk away and he was just pulling at her trying to rip her apart. I must have scared him off.

She's bruised, in shock with a lot of nicks and small punctures to her face and neck. I went over her very carefully and put antibiotic ointment on all her nicks. Her eye is really swollen, but it is superficial, not the eye itself. I slathered antibiotic eye ointment all over her eye. Her leg seems badly hurt--I hope it is just a muscle injury--there doesn't seem to be any deviation.

She came out of her shock by the time I had finished going over her looking for wounds. I put her in a crate inside the coop with her friends.

I am so happy I just didn't give up when she was missing and I found the poof of feathers.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I lost another chicken to a predator yesterday. I don't know the time it happened, but I suspect during the day probably late afternoon.

I was missing a black Silkie hen from my backyard flock when I closed them up at dusk. I found the poof of feathers by the fence under a tree with just the intestines in a pile covered in ants.

I can't believe the animal ate the hen on the spot. I'll go out and search the area this morning, but I didn't find enough feathers or anything else such as wing tips.

What kind of a predator would pull out the intestines? They were in a neat little pile, hardly spread out at all. Raccoon? Do you think they we re pulled out as the animal was killing the poor little hen?

 

[karenerwin]

I lost another chicken to a predator yesterday. I don't know the time it happened, but I suspect during the day probably late afternoon.

I was missing a black Silkie hen from my backyard flock when I closed them up at dusk. I found the poof of feathers by the fence under a tree with just the intestines in a pile covered in ants.

I can't believe the animal ate the hen on the spot. I'll go out and search the area this morning, but I didn't find enough feathers or anything else such as wing tips.

What kind of a predator would pull out the intestines? They were in a neat little pile, hardly spread out at all. Raccoon? Do you think they we re pulled out as the animal was killing the poor little hen?

It think it was a bird of prey, probably a hawk since you think it happened during the day. At night I would suspect an owl. I know that they tend to leave a circle of feathers and the remnants can often be found beneath a tree or fence post where the raptor perched while eating.
edited to add: when raccoons have gotten my birds they leave a lot more of them behind, but then I guess it all depends on how hungry the predator is/was.

 

[htyrrell]

Ok so last night something caught one of my call ducks closed fence ate everything except the head and one wing. Other birds untouched. Please help. Oh and I'm in southern Ontario.

 

[karenerwin]

Ok so last night something caught one of my call ducks closed fence ate everything except the head and one wing. Other birds untouched. Please help. Oh and I'm in southern Ontario.

Do you mean the call duck was grabbed through a closed fence? When that happened to one of my chickens it turned out to be a raccoon.

 

[htyrrell]

Do you mean the call duck was grabbed through a closed fence?  When that happened to one of my chickens it turned out to be a raccoon.

No something jumped the fence and ate everything but the head and wings in the
Pen. The other ducks were not touched.