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

[Sunshine Flock]

Very true! All cats, both domestic and wild, are obligate carnivores. They do not have the necessary physiology to digest plant matter and tend only to eat plant matter in order to intentionally make themselves sick....when they've eaten something that has upset their stomach or to help them bring up bones, teeth and other difficult to digest bits and bobs.

Right, exactly, and yet I never really thought about it like that. Good point!

 

[Welshies]

Foxes and coyotes both love corn. Coons do too, but this isn't the work of coons.
I'm putting my bet on a fox. Why?

• Their trademark coop attack method is to kill all the birds, then one-by-one taking them away to eat them or bury them.
• Foxes are more omnivorous than coyotes- they are smaller. Foxes will eat veggies, fruits, gardens, corn, grasses, seeds, roots, among animals.
• Foxes are more cunning and light, making it easier for there to be no tracks.
• Coyotes are larger, and tend to only kill a few animals before taking them away... or eating them on the spot.
• Weasels would not take the bodies. At least, not 30.
• Foxes are numerous. They don't hesitate to live in the middle of Toronto, or in the wilderness of the Rockies.
• Coyotes are much shyer than foxes.

 

[lazy gardener]

Coyotes travel in a pack, making it very easy for them to carry off 30 birds in a short time frame. To my knowledge fox only travel by ones or twos, or possibly mama and kits. I assume kits would have been driven out to new territory by now. Here's an excellent article about fox behavior.

http://www.nfws.org.uk/fox-calendar-of-events.html

January is usually the month of unrest within the fox family - not only is it the peak of the mating season, but also the peak dispersal season too. Cubs that were born last year, now adults, will be seen as a threat to the breeding rights and the available food supply of their parents. Any sub-adults who have failed to disperse will usually be continually chased away. Many of the sub-adults will actually leave of their own accord in search of a territory and a mate of their own. The resident dog fox and vixen will be actively defending the territory against intruders, both physically and vocally. They do this by barking and urinating and defecating along the borders of their territory.

Realistically, it could have been fox or coyote. Fox typically stop every now and then when carrying off their victims to give them a good shake, resulting in a pile of feathers laying here and there along their route back to their cache. The snow, being hard, would not have left tracks, but those little feather piles would be evident.

 

[kwhites634]

Doing

KW, I'm putting my money on coyote, in spite of seeds in scat. I agree with you that it was visible corn kernels. And that would point to coon. But, in my experience, there would have been more damage if coon, and I think there would have been at least 1 or two bodies left behind, more feathers. Of course it could have been a gang of coons. I don't know how solitary they are in the winter. I think this time of year, meat may be scarce, and those coyotes will eat what ever they can get. They are opportunistic, similar to coon, but perhaps more successful in "procuring steak for the evening meal" than a coon might be.

How ya doin, anyhow????

Doing pretty well, I guess, for an old man.
You're probably right with your coyote theory, but in the early deer season here, before it got cold, my trail cam caught 5 coons all at once, after the corn spread around the feeder.

 

[lazy gardener]

Too bad you weren't out at the same time as those coons.

 

[Morrigan]

It looks a bit like the bobcat scat we found around our property, but for the seeds. Although if a bobcat ate a rodent that had recently consumed seeds, wouldn't the seeds get into the bobcat scat?

In my case, 1 or 2 juvenile bobcats killed 9 chickens during the course of what I would guess was less than an half an hour, but all 9 carcasses were still in the coop. Given that the attack happened around dawn, and the bodies were still warm when I found them, I think my dogs scared the bobcat(s) away before they could have tried to drag any bodies away or even eat what they had killed.

 

[Sunshine Flock]

This is a great discussion. I need to nail down my darn terminology, but meanwhile lots to consider.

I really can't argue one way or the other, but I do know from experience that coyotes often travel alone. They're not always operating from within a pack. In fact, I've only ever seen a non-solitary coyote once.

Coyote are larger than raccoons, but that doesn't mean they're more likely to leave tracks. On dry ground you may not see anything, and with lots of rain muddy tracks may infill and smooth out. We have lots of mulch and decomposed granite and gravel on our property, and wild grass, so it's not so easy seeing tracks.

Although a tracker would probably see tons more than I do with my Scooby Doo knowledge of animal tracking.

It's also been my experience that coyotes grab and go, deposit their catch, and then come back for more. Maybe not in the deep wilds, but where human developments are concerned and food sources that aren't native to their local diets, this does seem to be a common method. Neighbors have told me that with a coyote, often the only evidence you'll see is a small pile of feathers in the coop, if that. No on-site killing.

Night vision cameras attest to this.

Raccoons, I'm not sure, but from what I've read they seem to be more vicious and not so much of the grab and go variety. They seem more prone to killing on site, with blood as an indicator of this, and then maybe they carry off their dinner to be consumed at the Coon Cafe in the woods.

Bobcats, wow. Did any of you see the long video someone posted of a bobcat attack inside their coop at night. This was in the last few weeks. You probably already know this, but it was new to me. Bobcats tend to kill and eat on site and leave piles of carcasses right there. Do you agree with this? Do cougars do something similar since they're kitties, too?

Weasels, I'm just learning about those things. Teeny and cute, but crazy vicious. Not capable, I don't think, of carrying off anything larger than maybe another weasel?

ETA: I think coyotes probably do "operate" from within a pack. I hear them howling for each other all the time, and I especially love hearing coyote packs with howling puppies. But since I only ever see them along, except for once, it's my guess that they travel throughout the day, on their own in search of food, and then maybe they have a coyote meet up at the town hall?

 

[happyfrenchman]

I cannot imagine anything (wild animal wise) that would take thirty birds and not leave anything but a pile of feathers or two....... even a pack of coyotes would not get thirty. I would have asked if it was possible the majority of your birds were able to escape into the darkness and that they will hopefully return? But I guess it has been a few days now...That is the worst I have ever heard.... (I have heard of chickens being killed in big numbers, but usually they are left around or at least more evidence is left. Racoons are killers, but that is a lot of chickens and they would not be so organized as to carry them all off. Weasels are killers, but the bodies remain for the most part behind. Whatever did this, that is a lot of carrying. I would suspect a person.

 

[Morrigan]

I cannot imagine anything (wild animal wise) that would take thirty birds and not leave anything but a pile of feathers or two....... even a pack of coyotes would not get thirty. I would have asked if it was possible the majority of your birds were able to escape into the darkness and that they will hopefully return? But I guess it has been a few days now...That is the worst I have ever heard.... (I have heard of chickens being killed in big numbers, but usually they are left around or at least more evidence is left. Racoons are killers, but that is a lot of chickens and they would not be so organized as to carry them all off. Weasels are killers, but the bodies remain for the most part behind. Whatever did this, that is a lot of carrying. I would suspect a person.

I hope its a possibility that some of your birds survived and are hiding out. I had 8 birds survive the attack and were hiding in the yard.

 

[Ms Biddy]

I'm sorry for your loss. The content and size of the scat narrows it down to several possibilities and the killing behavior narrows it down further. I vote for fox, quite possibly more than one. During mating season (now?) I've seen them running in pairs. Perhaps they had a very exciting date night.