Vanished

[chickengeorgeto]

Foxes also will grab a full-grown chicken and run off.

Yes but there should be some lose feathers laying around.

I hope that you find her sitting on a stolen clutch of eggs. Hens are quite easy to track back to their hidden nests but you need to be on constant alert to catch her at it.

 

[Tlmcq]

I guess I'll go back to only letting my chickens out in the evening and on my days off. I started letting them out to free range while I was at work and apparently that didn't work. I don't think It's even been two weeks. Hopefully it was a learning experience for the rest of them and they'll exercise a bit more situational awareness.

edit: I may try the strips of bright cloth too. Certainly can't hurt and whether or not it was a hawk this time, it will be eventually. They aren't uncommon in the area.

Any predator that has had success will come back for the next easy meal. A red tailed hawk will not generally carry a fully grown chicken off without a trace. There are other hawks that do tho. Most will leave feathers. A coyote or fox definitely can and will. They like to take it elsewhere to eat.Is this happening during daytime hours? A raccoon will carry them off too but not during the day. And usually you will find remains away from area where they take it from. But, fox n coyote are normally the no trace predators.

 

[adstowe]

It's only happened this one time (so far) and it was during the day.
chickengeorgeto - I had thought of that. I looked around in all the likely places and didn't turn up anything, but I've started leaving food and water outside the run, in case she did go broody and comes back looking for it when the others are locked up.