What could it be?? I was able to eliminate one element or did I?

[Calhapichkns]

Hi There, I'm from Northern California and I've recently loss a good hen to a predator. I built a nice solid coop but ending up raising pullets so my full grown hens are now in the open enclosure on the side of our house for about 2 mos now. Everything was fine till 2 days ago when I found one of the hen dead ( half eaten and decapitated ). So I've decided to use my dog to stalked out the predator. I've left both screen doors open the following night and sure enough around 3:00 A.M. my dog starts going crazy and saw a possum on top of the fence. Unfortunately for the possum my dog was able to caught it and my son hit it with a baseball bat. To my surprised it was still alived when I got up couple hours later, so I finally put a end to it. ( justice for my hen ). However after doing more research about possum's there's no mentioned of chickens as one of their prefered diet. Did I do a wrong justice on the possum? Also any idea on how to prevent animals passing through the top of the fence? nails, spike, etc?

 

[wombat]

'Possums will kill and eat chickens. Even though they seem dimwitted and slow-moving, they are rather agile. I've seen them running along telephone wires 30' off the ground.

You'll have a hard time keeping them from getting over a fence. You might be better served putting in an electric fence "hotwire" to keep them from your chickens, if the chickens can be confined to a run / coop at night.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Opposums do on occasion eat chickens. There are not near as bad as coons or the chicken owner's worst nightmare "the weasel", but nevertheless they have stomaches and teeth and jump at the opportunity to have fresh meat.

If you have chickens, you should invest in a live trap and set it out. You will be surprised at what you get.

-Kim

 

[Bizzybirdy]

Might have been the possum but usually a racoon bites off heads. Possums usually come around looking for "leftovers" and usually eat on the main body of a chicken. Just my observations.

I would be still looking for a racoon....to come back.

A hot wire or two around the pen will deter predators! Put the first one about 6" high.