What did this?

[Gallus Sapien]

Oh one more thing... do you think all thr birds were attacked through the fence? What if they were all attacked from the in side, and the tracks in pics is the animal just tring to get it's meal back home. It is hard to believe the all of your birds would get close to the fence to get injured after the first one cryed out?...............Could this have been a "inside" job? If so, think Mink or Pine Martin. Do you live near water or big timber?

 

[nurse_turtle]

2-3 dogs. I've lost half my flock to dogs. There were tracks everywhere.

 

[laura877]

My daughter has lost more then half her flock of breeding chickens and they weren't sure what it was until they trapped it. I think they said they lost over 40 birds in a short period of time. They thought it was a weasel. It turned out to be a mink going in under the fencing, killing and then leaving. The only thing was that it wasn't really eating the chickens. It was just biting them in the neck and drinking the blood.

 

[deepvalleyfarm]

Interesting observations. My predator COULD have gotten in for the attack...there is a small gap in the fence where the gate meets the upper bar (this is a small, 3' dog kennel). My husband, who hunts, says fox. My father, who's been raising chickens since the '50's says raccoon. It was hard to tell from the tracks, since they were everywhichway exactly what it was. I would say they were about the size of a quarter, rounded, w/ no claws. That's from the couple of clear ones I did see. Nothing in my traps this morning and so far the remaining birds are still alive....we'll see how they fair. I'll check the inside of the enclosure tonight for tracks. i didn't notice any yesterday, but i think i was just so shocked that i didn't investigate enough.

There is a woods close by & the area is marshy, so really this could be anything. I lost a batch of chickens when we first moved out there; something came in & killed them all w/o eating them. At the time, I blamed my neighbors small dogs, thinking they did it for sport. Maybe I have mink ...

I know there are foxes (one took a Jersey Buff last summer), raccoons (have already trapped them), stray cats, etc...hopefully something will land in my trap soon & I can seek my revenge!

 

[Sunbeard]

Looks almost like Bobcat... hmm wait a sec.. could be a Coyote... take a look at these. http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/circ561.html

 

[jeepguy982001]

i don't know for sure what got your hen. But i would take this as a learning experience and attach some hardware cloth to the lower part of your chainlink fence so it won't happen again. Sorry for your loss.

 

[agammons]

me and my husband coon hunt and i can tell without a doubt in my mind that those are not coon tracks i would agree with the others about a fox though highly probable and we had same prob last year and are just now replenishing our stock got discouraged for a bit after loosing so many until my husband who works nights stayed up on one of his nights off and around 6am here came a fox right past our dogs and everything (who never made a peep) we got it and have not had any problems since

 

[wvtim]

I have had dogs do this exact same thing through the fence - i have since put hardware cloth around the botton 2 feet

 

[Gallus Sapien]

Any updates

 

[nthehunt]

the fact that you havent caught anything in your trap, also screams fox to as they are really trap shy. have coonhunted and trapped for 25 years and have one caught one fox in a cage trap and that one was a youngen.