Hi guys, I’ve been a member here before but my old email is inactive so I have to start over. 
I’ve had chickens for 7 years. I’ve had them in a small area, and as of last year I fenced off a larger area in my yard so they have more room.
Apparently this year it has attracted predators. I’ve lost two chickens in a month. Seems to be at dusk. Without getting into the gruesome details, I feel like it may be a bird of prey going after them. There is no evidence of a dog getting in, unless something is climbing over the fence, I see no evidence. The coop area is narrow and always hoped that made it safe.
Both seem to be attacked near the coop as they were going in for the night.
Im traumatized by it!
The obvious solution is netting and locking them back down into a smaller area.
i guess I’m just wondering if there is any advice out there as to what you think it may be and how to keep them out of the area so my chickens can roam. If I can’t, I can’t.
Thanks for reading.
I’ve had chickens for 7 years. I’ve had them in a small area, and as of last year I fenced off a larger area in my yard so they have more room.
Apparently this year it has attracted predators. I’ve lost two chickens in a month. Seems to be at dusk. Without getting into the gruesome details, I feel like it may be a bird of prey going after them. There is no evidence of a dog getting in, unless something is climbing over the fence, I see no evidence. The coop area is narrow and always hoped that made it safe.
Both seem to be attacked near the coop as they were going in for the night.
Im traumatized by it!
The obvious solution is netting and locking them back down into a smaller area.
i guess I’m just wondering if there is any advice out there as to what you think it may be and how to keep them out of the area so my chickens can roam. If I can’t, I can’t.
Thanks for reading.
It could be an owl. I have netting covering my pens and that solved the aerial predator problem. I had some crappy netting because I didn't have enough originally to cover all of my pens and an owl went right through it and killed some birds. I moved the birds to another coop and pen and put one of my game cameras in the pen and the owl came back. I have since replaced the crappy netting with some good netting and the owl gave it another try but this time got caught in the netting. DH and I managed to get it loose and into a cage and some wildlife people came and got it.
