The mystery killer... (warning: gross details but no picture)

[Smurk]

Hello! So I have had chickens for a long time, and I have always somewhat managed to work out what happened to them when they die. But this one has me stumped. My chicken (bantam size) have always lived in a fully enclosed thing (top, bottom, sides). Ten years that they have been safe and uninjured inside their enclosure. Foxes have tried but never managed. Bottom and sides are thick wire with tiny holes. Top is thick wire with bigger holes (5cm). Overhanging trees on top nearly touching the floppy top. Birds manage to fit through sometimes, but not the big birds. My chickens normally free-range during the day with our border collie, the dog is good at chasing away birds (and whatever might approach the chicken apparently). This week, our fences are upgraded, so the dog is locked at home and the chicken are locked in their fully-enclosed coop. Yesterday at noon, not a problem, everyone happy. Yesterday at 2pm, two dead chickens: one was dragged (?) out of the chicken enclosure and eaten in a neighbour's backyard (the neighbour found it and is sure it wasn't there 2 hours before). The other chicken was found dead, untouched, in the coop. Some esthetic damage to the three surviving chook, one of them was pushed against a fence and lost quite a bit of feather. I cannot find an entry point. I have checked everything, and I have sent the kids to investigate too, there is no entry point that we can find. I know there are foxes around, I have seen them in full daylight. But they would have not fit in a 5cm hole. They have tried enough, I know they can't fit. Also, one dead chook inside (possibly heart attack or something like that), but the other three are not injured: a fox would have killed them all, right? The chook which was dragged out (and I don't know how!) and eaten in a neighbour's backyard: head intact, one wing intact, fluffy bit of rump intact, but the rest is gone. We don't have weasels or racoons in Australia. Possums don't eat chicken. Rats are too small to full-on attack five feisty hens (and carry one away). A cat maybe? I don't know. Any idea?

 

[azygous]

Five centimeters is plenty large enough for a determined predator to thrust a paw down into the enclosure and grab a chicken and haul it up, detaching body parts as its hauled through the five cm opening. Raccoons here in the US have perfected this extraction method. You need to determine what predator that has a significant craving for meat has dexterous paws that can fit a five cm opening.

Now is the time to fix that top, covering it with smaller mesh wire as that is most likely how the predator grabbed the chickens.

 

[AidKD]

Could it've been a skunk?

 

[BDutch]

Sorry for the losses.
There must have been a way to get in for a predator. Maybe under the fence through a hole under the ground?
Our neighbours had rabbit holes underneath the run with long tunnels and rats came through the tunnels/holes to eat from the chicken feed. Some predators would fit through them just as well.

The neighbours also lost some rabbits and chickens to foxes twice. But they came over the fence (1,20m) through the thin netting on both occasions. And a fox probably would not eat a chicken on an open field/lawn. A dog going through the hwc on top or through a rabbit tunnel is very unlikely too.

What kind of predators do you have down under? Do you have something like polecats, ermines or martens? I think that is the direction to look for.

 

[McChooky]

Hello! So I have had chickens for a long time, and I have always somewhat managed to work out what happened to them when they die. But this one has me stumped. My chicken (bantam size) have always lived in a fully enclosed thing (top, bottom, sides). Ten years that they have been safe and uninjured inside their enclosure. Foxes have tried but never managed. Bottom and sides are thick wire with tiny holes. Top is thick wire with bigger holes (5cm). Overhanging trees on top nearly touching the floppy top. Birds manage to fit through sometimes, but not the big birds. My chickens normally free-range during the day with our border collie, the dog is good at chasing away birds (and whatever might approach the chicken apparently). This week, our fences are upgraded, so the dog is locked at home and the chicken are locked in their fully-enclosed coop. Yesterday at noon, not a problem, everyone happy. Yesterday at 2pm, two dead chickens: one was dragged (?) out of the chicken enclosure and eaten in a neighbour's backyard (the neighbour found it and is sure it wasn't there 2 hours before). The other chicken was found dead, untouched, in the coop. Some esthetic damage to the three surviving chook, one of them was pushed against a fence and lost quite a bit of feather. I cannot find an entry point. I have checked everything, and I have sent the kids to investigate too, there is no entry point that we can find. I know there are foxes around, I have seen them in full daylight. But they would have not fit in a 5cm hole. They have tried enough, I know they can't fit. Also, one dead chook inside (possibly heart attack or something like that), but the other three are not injured: a fox would have killed them all, right? The chook which was dragged out (and I don't know how!) and eaten in a neighbour's backyard: head intact, one wing intact, fluffy bit of rump intact, but the rest is gone. We don't have weasels or racoons in Australia. Possums don't eat chicken. Rats are too small to full-on attack five feisty hens (and carry one away). A cat maybe? I don't know. Any idea? em

Possums eat chickens in the United States so I'm assuming they would eat chickens there.Not saying a possum killed your chicken but they aren't harmless!!

 

[Smurk]

Possums eat chickens in the United States so I'm assuming they would eat chickens there.Not saying a possum killed your chicken but they aren't harmless!!

Thanks! Possums down under are not related to possums in the US. Ours are mostly herbivorous. In a fight with my bantam chicken, a possum would definitely loose. We feed ours apples and they are actually very cute fluffy things, they don't look like a dangerously big rat.

 

[Smurk]

Thanks everyone for all the replies! I keep thinking. I don't know of other predators that would fit in a rabbit-hole type of things. But you are right, I didn't check that part of the enclosure. When we were preparing our chook Fort Knox, the bottom had been dugged out, thick wires laid everywhere and then dumped 20-ish centimeters of dirt. When I checked yesterday (and now it is dark, so I can't check now), I carefully checked all the perimeter and sides and top of the enclosure, but didn't at all check if there is, like, an actual hole in the middle of the enclosure. I will have a better look tomorrow. Also, a smaller cat or I don't know, something that would have ran havoc in the enclosure, traumatised a chicken or two without injuring them, then grabbed one (and only one), got out again and ate it on the neighbour's lawn. I can't see a fox doing that.

 

[Smurk]

Also, just to reassure you that the three survivors have been locked in a giant dog crate in our laundry, until we can secure again their coop (and until the dog can join them outside again). So they are totally safe, unless whatever is after them can operate our locked house door - in which case I will have bigger problems than that.

 

[McChooky]

Thanks! Possums down under are not related to possums in the US. Ours are mostly herbivorous. In a fight with my bantam chicken, a possum would definitely loose. We feed ours apples and they are actually very cute fluffy things, they don't look like a dangerously big rat.

To be fair they can be a threat to chickens that can't escape (penned) but prefer to be the clean up crew.

 

[McChooky]

Cats from next door watch our chickens from the woods a lot but we don't have any small chickens or bantams so they aren't a threat to our flock (we also have dogs and roosters) The reason we didn't get small chickens is they're vulnerable and need more protection