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

[WVduckchick]

I have 2 different chickens houses. One's big and is a combo pen/coop, about 12x20 like a pole barn wrapped in chicken wire with a 8x4 roosting coop with egg boxes on back so you can collect eggs from outside. It's for the adults. They mostly roost in the rafters though. The other is for younguns and is 2 stories about 8ft tall. On the bottom is the hatchery/brooder, after they feather out and can fly up to the second story, I move them up there and start another crop of babies down below if there are any broodys.
The kudzu dies back in the winter, and I try to keep it and the wisteria all cut back and poisoned in summer,. Right now there's none they could hide in. Only place they could be the swamp or the woods.Even though they love to forage, they love that hi-protein game feed I give them every afternoon. Like clockwork, once the sun goes down over the trees, they come to the back door and will make a racket till I go feed them!

So both coops were cleared out??
so sorry for your loss..

 

[Diamond Dan]

Im guessing multiple Big Coons or a pack of Coyotes. Coyotes her in the south have figured out that road kill is an easy meal. they keep the highways pretty clean now im in MS a you rarely see a dead deer on the road side very long. When we run across Coyote scat its usually full of deer coon possum dog hair. with so much meat around i dont think they scrounge for vegetable matter. Rouge coons and possums usually kill more than they eat and leave a trail of blood and feathers close by.

 

[Bunnylady]

I have a tractor-style coop that got broken into less than two weeks ago. There had been three EE's in there, two pullets and a cockerel. Of him, the only sign was a whole lot of his feathers scattered in an area about 50 ft away. One pullet's body was lying about halfway between the scattered feathers and the coop; her head, neck and some upper body parts had been eaten, but she was mostly intact. The third bird was still in the coop, and she was uninjured.

This is typical of what I've experienced in the way of a raccoon raid. One or two birds taken, consumed nearby, and the other birds unharmed. On the occasions when I've had large numbers wiped out, the offenders were foxes - on one occasion, one was spotted carrying birds off, on another, birds that had been seen lying dead in the pen vanished within the next hour or so.

I've no quarrel with anyone else's knowledge or experience, but to me, this situation sounds more similar to the fox kills I've seen.

 

[EggWalrus]

By all the happy Emojis is it safe to assume you're saying they've come back?

Nope haven't any more come home, the emojis were the way my birds act at afternoon feeding. The 2 little leghorns and their Swamp Momma came over for breakfast and dinner today.

 

[EggWalrus]

So both coops were cleared out??
so sorry for your loss..

Thank God they didn't get both! Just the Condo that we use for small birds till they are big enough to get in with the adults. The big one, Cluckinghen Palace didn't get hit, except for on Christmas day in the middle of the day. We lost one Rhodie hen. What ever got her, bite her once, she bled out, and it left her body. Possibly a dog?

 

[Fields Mountain Farm]

Nope haven't any more come home, the emojis were the way my birds act at afternoon feeding. The 2 little leghorns and their Swamp Momma came over for breakfast and dinner today.

Oh, ok.... there's still hope. They've been spooked. There's still hope they'll come home...

 

[EggWalrus]

After what you have told me. I would guess that there are a few hens out the in the swamp or the woods.
I do have a question thought has there been an increase in the number of flights by the US gov lately?

No increase here as to guv flights. Every couple months we get a new class at flight school. They start off nice weather day flights and 2 months later they fly in all weather with cockpit windows blacked out so they are forced to use instrumentation flight rules (IFR). Last class graduated before Xmas and is been pretty quite till yesterday. A new class started. They shouldn't start Dive Run live fire exercises for several weeks. When they do, you can hear the Rockets exploding and 30 cal chainguns from 15 miles away at Matteson Range where I used to work. It is one heck of a show to see them pop up over the pines, shred some targets with the 30 cal, then hit old Soviet tanks with rockets. It you are in the observation area, those rockets even shake the ground! Night Fire is best with all the Tracer Rounds flying.

 

[Sunshine Flock]

No increase here as to guv flights. Every couple months we get a new class at flight school. They start off nice weather day flights and 2 months later they fly in all weather with cockpit windows blacked out so they are forced to use instrumentation flight rules (IFR). Last class graduated before Xmas and is been pretty quite till yesterday. A new class started. They shouldn't start Dive Run live fire exercises for several weeks. When they do, you can hear the Rockets exploding and 30 cal chainguns from 15 miles away at Matteson Range where I used to work. It is one heck of a show to see them pop up over the pines, shred some targets with the 30 cal, then hit old Soviet tanks with rockets. It you are in the observation area, those rockets even shake the ground! Night Fire is best with all the Tracer Rounds flying.

Honestly it sounds super stellar. I'd be in piggy heaven being able to hear and see that all day long. Again, said from a safe distance, but boy does that sound awesome.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Not exactly. More like, "can remove/drive off 30 chickens in a single night," There is evidence that at least one chicken was bleeding, but not that all birds were consumed (they definitely weren't consumed on the spot; I've seen that, and it's a very messy business)

This is like a game of clue.

 

[Bunnylady]

This is like a game of clue.

Yep, but theorizing ahead of your data doesn't put you out of the game.