What could kill and eat 30 chickens in 1 night and not leave a single body.

[PirateGirl]

http://mlitvaitis.unh.edu/Research/BobcatWeb/bobcatsigns.htm

bobcat vs. coyote scat pictures as well as track pictures

 

[Josh0625]

I have hunted and trapped coyotes for a while now and im pretty confident that is not yote poo.....and im fairly confident that is bobcat poo

 

[Bunnylady]

I lost a couple of birds to a bobcat, but they were only taken 1 at a time - not sure if that's typical or not.

 

[EggWalrus]

That is a lot of birds to lose in one night to anything but a weasel. Yours may be the record. Normally, with that many birds gone missing in one night, with no remains left anywhere, theft by humans is a possibility. That it happened the one night when the door was left open, however, makes human theft less likely.

What may have happened is word spread the buffet was open and everyone joined in. Coyotes, coons, foxes and who knows how many others? The curious thing being ALL 30 birds missing. There are only a handful of predators who will kill a lot of birds.....weasels, dogs, coons and as we discovered recently, bobcats. But most of those leave bodies or parts of bodies laying around. That many birds and all gone in one night doesn't even sound possible.

Mystery indeed.

To begin with I thought someone backed up a truck with a dog cage and stole them till I found the feathers and blood. But now I'm wondering, that many birds and no blood but 2 little spots, maybe some 2 legged critter did get them.

 

[Bunnylady]

A human who knew what they were doing wouldn't even leave feathers; even a clumsy one probably wouldn't leave blood.

 

[lazy gardener]

You all are seeing hair? Geez this getting old thing sucks. Must need new glasses again.

No, I did not see hair in the scat, that's what we are looking at as cues. I believe the very dark color indicates that the animal in question was eating some meat, but absence of hair is questionable. I looked up pics of coyote scat. Many samples had seeds, which fits their omnivore diet. Some samples did not have visible hair, though the warm water may have teased some hair out. I'm saying coyote b/c so many birds were taken in a single night. I think there would have been more signs if it had been coon. Bobcat could also do the stealth, multiple birds carried off to cache elsewhere, but I'm putting my money on coyote. I have little first hand experience to back up my thoughts.

 

[JanetMarie]

A fox will kill many birds at one time then carry them off one by one to eat later, leaving only some feathers behind, and is small enough to go through the chicken door.

 

[kwhites634]

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It depends on the size and time of year. If I were to see that here in Northern California, I'd guess coyote or cougar. It's hard to tell because of how similar they tend to look.

.Except that there are seeds in it. Far as I know, canines & cats are meat eaters, exclusively.

 

[Sunshine Flock]

Thanks for the reply. I'm located on the Choctawhatchee River in south east AL. It was in the mid teens, I was freezing and didn't feel like going to get a tape measure, but I should have. Our at least put something down for reference.

So many should haves in my life. No worries at all. Plus, the heart break of finding your flock missing like that? It makes me queasy just thinking about it.

The bear scat was long before I got chickens. I was so excited I ran and grabbed my tape measure, took lots of photos, and then posted them on Twitter, much to my mother's disgust.

The night of the Massacre, the old lady got them fed and put to bed, but she forgot to close and lock the door to the coop. So no signs of damage, the killers went thru the open door. Only 2 little piles of feathers, and hardly any blood in the coop.

I forgot to the close the door about a month ago and was absolutely horrified when we took the dogs out at midnight and found the little chicken door wipe open. It made the coop look cavernous and eerie, and I was shaking as I ran to see if they had survived.

That will never happen again.

 

[Welshies]

It was definitely a fox. Being omnivores, their scat will have anything in it- seeds, berries, hair, etc. It wouldn't have been a weasel; they wouldn't have carried away all the bodies. Foxes are much more oppurtunistic and their trademark is carrying away the bodies- it buries them to eat later.
This was likely not a coyote. They usually don't do this- foxes do.