Predators made a clean getaway?

[WallyBirdie]

Between 6 and 8 pm, a fair portion of my flock turned up missing.
They free range during the day and go into the coop at night. Last night, for the first time, I was late getting my birds in, and I paid dearly for it. I need to get a new headcount and then take measures to ensure their safety, but the glaringly obvious loss is hard.

I lost another amazing gentleman roo, my orloff, my last buff Orpington, and a number of my younger girls. (I say younger but they are over a year old.)

I have a month old cockerel in the house. He is almost ready to go out with the flock but now I'm worried over predation, along with the pecking order needing to be reestablished.

I keep looking for signs that one of my birds has somehow survived. I keep searching for feathers or remains- but I'm not finding anything. Granted the property is large and I have a field, I wish I had a solid idea of what happened.

Raccoons have been coming close and coyotes have been too. Coyotes are my first guess, but I thought they came out later in the evening.

 

[N F C]

So sorry to hear about your losses. I hope you're able to find some of them and they're ok.

 

[WallyBirdie]

So sorry to hear about your losses. I hope you're able to find some of them and they're ok.

Thank you. I found one of my Easter Eggers hidden and safe. But I also found an awful trail of feathers that I was able to identify from my Wyandotte and Buff Orpington.

 

[N F C]

Thank you. I found one of my Easter Eggers hidden and safe. But I also found an awful trail of feathers that I was able to identify from my Wyandotte and Buff Orpington.

Glad about the EE and sorry about the others. It always hurts to lose them

 

[Mmanist]

Between 6 and 8 pm, a fair portion of my flock turned up missing.
They free range during the day and go into the coop at night. Last night, for the first time, I was late getting my birds in, and I paid dearly for it. I need to get a new headcount and then take measures to ensure their safety, but the glaringly obvious loss is hard.

I lost another amazing gentleman roo, my orloff, my last buff Orpington, and a number of my younger girls. (I say younger but they are over a year old.)

I have a month old cockerel in the house. He is almost ready to go out with the flock but now I'm worried over predation, along with the pecking order needing to be reestablished.

I keep looking for signs that one of my birds has somehow survived. I keep searching for feathers or remains- but I'm not finding anything. Granted the property is large and I have a field, I wish I had a solid idea of what happened.

Raccoons have been coming close and coyotes have been too. Coyotes are my first guess, but I thought they came out later in the evening.

I would suspect coyotes, racoons usually leave a feather pile, coyote grab and run.

 

[feather13]

Oh no! I'm so sorry about your flock. Even with the sun going down later this summer, I was an hour late putting our chickens away and a raccoon killed one (I caught it trying to kill another). It was still light out. I hope your other birds show up. In my experience, raccoons leave horrible trails of feathers *everywhere.* Coyotes might leave less evidence behind.