It may have been an owl if it was at dusk or already dark. Most likely you scared it off when you came home and it did not get to finish it's meal. If you had left the body there over night the owl most likely would have come back for it..........I have stayed up all night and witnessed this a couple of times!!
I recently lost 3 grown ducks the same way......... I was thinking it was a coon.....until I walked up on the Great Horned Owl sitting on my gate one evening at dusk! He was picking out which of my ducks he wanted for his dinner that night I guess. I lock them up in their duck house at night now. I also caught the owl taking some of my chickens after he gave up on the ducks.
He flew off just as I drove up the driveway........it was not even totally dark.........I closed up the coop for the night and then tied a brick to the dead chickens leg. The owl came back to try to finish it.............several times during the night.........a loud "bang" scared him off a few times
.....I finally went to bed around 2am.........next morning the only thing left was a foot on a string tied to the brick. Before he started getting his dinner at my house I had never seen or even heard an owl near my home..........but I only moved her last summer.
I recently lost 3 grown ducks the same way......... I was thinking it was a coon.....until I walked up on the Great Horned Owl sitting on my gate one evening at dusk! He was picking out which of my ducks he wanted for his dinner that night I guess. I lock them up in their duck house at night now. I also caught the owl taking some of my chickens after he gave up on the ducks.
He flew off just as I drove up the driveway........it was not even totally dark.........I closed up the coop for the night and then tied a brick to the dead chickens leg. The owl came back to try to finish it.............several times during the night.........a loud "bang" scared him off a few times
.....I finally went to bed around 2am.........next morning the only thing left was a foot on a string tied to the brick. Before he started getting his dinner at my house I had never seen or even heard an owl near my home..........but I only moved her last summer.
