What could have killed my Brown Leg Horn Hen?

[weloveourchicks]

We've had our chickens now for 9 months and haven't lost not one to a predator. My son goes down to the coop this morning to gather eggs as usual and find one of our laying

brown leg horns dead in the coop headless. He found her head on the outside of the fence. What would pull her head off through the fence then just leave it? I would have expected a raccoon to eat it or do they just kill and leave?

 

[Mahonri]

Racoon... her body could have run into the coop after she was decapitated.

 

[weloveourchicks]

Well hubby has a job to do; I'm gonna have him go back around the coop with smaller chicken wire so this doesn't continue to happen. We love all of our chicks, but the kids have special ones and if it happens to one of them it'll be a sad sad day in our house.

 

[coffeelady3]

If the raccoon could have gotten the chicken out of the run, the it would have eaten it. Too keep this from happening again, get some hardware cloth and wrap the lower couple feet of the run so the raccoon can't reach through and grab the chickens.

 

[weloveourchicks]

Yep, we'll have to do that today - My son can't deal with this every morning. We took such care making sure we made the pen predator proof by taking the fencing 2 feet down into the ground and using concrete to keep anything from digging their way in; didn't occur to me they'd actually just reach through the fence and jerk something out!! And why in the world would she go so close the fence with something lerking around

 

[epona4]

Could also have been a mink. A friend of mine had several of her birds killed. All their heads were off and their bodies were lined up. Her vet told her it was a mink.

I'm learning that we have all sorts of predators here in central Indiana that i never knew about. Mink and bobcats were the shockers for me.

b

 

[weloveourchicks]

hmm, I don't think we have minks here - mainly what we've seen around our property is fox and raccoons. Wouldn't have been as bad if he'd at least eaten the head so I'd feel like it was just nature doing it's thing; something was hungry and just doing what came natural to find food but the fact that it just ripped her head off then left is just plain disturbing to me.

 

[epona4]

http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050042

Not sure when in Va you are, but this says that mink are in central and eastern Va. I honestly didn't think we had them here in Indiana either. I've never seen them. I only see coons, skunks, possums and the occasional dead fox on the side of the road.

I wish I could find the article that I read that states that this is exactly what they will do. Not eat the chicken, but rip off the head. It's like they do it for fun.

Whatever it is, I hope it moves on or you're able to catch it and make a fur wrap out of it!!

Hope your son is ok. That's a rough thing to see no matter what age you are.

 

[weloveourchicks]

Wow, thanks - I had no clue we had minks here but I live just west of Central VA so I am sure they are around. Well my son has gone back out there 100 times to check on the other chickens. If it comes back we're gonna get it!!

- - Susan

 

[nnbreeder]

Think small and plug all holes bigger then a quarter. Instead of chicken wire use hardware cloth as if it is a coon they can reach through chicken wire.