Was this weasel or what?PHOTOS BIRD AFTER ATTACK DaytimeJustBeforeDarK

[ekemily]

I think it is death by flockmates. In my opinion, if it were a wild animal that had that much time to eat the guts carefully from the vent, it would have spent more time just killing and eating the best parts of each chicken it could grab. Were there other scratches or claw marks on the bird? Was the head/throat mangled? What were the other chickens doing when you found the dead bird? Did they seem interested in the body?
I'm sorry for the loss of your little bird, but it does look like your other girls ate her.

 

[theFox]

Light breeds 12-20 weeks of age confined housing 5.0 square feet per bird.

Bantams same age band 3.5 square feet per bird.

You had 23 birds in that 64 square foot coop or 2.8 square feet per bird.

Birds get stressed from the confinement.

Let's go over what you told us, you heard a bird scream but there was no alert.

"I did hear one scream a little earlier but I was holding my peachick and thought it may just be a fight among them and couldn't check and then heard no alert ... "

This indicates that it likely wasn't a predator because why would the flock alert on their actions.

The chicken is missing a lot of feathers and you also mentioned that you "thought it may just be a fight among them" and that the attack happened in daylight, it is rare for rats to be out and about then (they also will gnaw on just about any area they can reach on a bird), also weasels are dusk to dawn critters (and while not unknown to eat a bird from the hind end are more apt to go for the neck and a blood letting), raccoons also unless sick or very hungry are also not usually out at that time (they also need more of an opening to get through).

I've seen the results of chickens doing in another chicken. Once a bird goes down the others are more than happy to join in.

The end result is a dead chicken with a hole in it and its intestines at the very least severed, the chicken then dies. After that those little omnivores go to work.

To err on the side of caution, you need to beef up your setup which you are doing, setup some traps that can hold critters from weasels to raccoons in size, and think about going after rats and downsizing your flock (you do have plans for this) or increasing the size of your coops.

I've got to do the flock size decrease shortly or I'm going to have some chicken eating chickens as well.

 

[Tootsie]

16 birds are 4 months old not even as big as most banties yet.

When I discovered the door ajar it was before dark as in before darkness so I didn't need my flashlight yet probably around 6 pm. I have 5 different coops and was in a different coop altogether so I may not have heard everything exactly from where I thought.

The fact is this is the only time the door was knocked open since I forgot to put the heavy thing against it and this is the only time a bird was dead.

Plus the tunnel someone dug right underneath the coop leads me to believe it was an outsider.

I am depending on my friend to finish their run and he hasn't had the time. After the show I will probably free range them if it isn't finished by then.