What do you think this is?

[TheHenHen]

Hello, There is this predator that took most of our meat chicks. Me and my mom when't out to our barn investigate, and found two hairs and one of them was gray and brown. What could that have been?

Thanks for you help!
Timber 10 yrs.

 

[Kevin565]

We're going to need a bit more information:

What is your coop set up?

What body parts were missing?

A picture of the hairs

Any tracks found?

 

[TheHenHen]

Hello, I have no pictures of the hairs. The coop is not so much like a coop, it's more like a barn shape it has a door, and it's off of the ground on small bricks. We did see a chick underneath the barn, my dad came out and got it out with a rake, and it had no head. There where no tracks but on the barn door where scratch marks as if the animal was trying to get in. There where more scratches on the other side of the door and blood splashes.

Thanks for the help!
Timber

 

[jnjross]

what state?
my first guess is fox

 

[TheHenHen]

Hi, we're in Ontario Canada.

 

[TheHenHen]

Do you know what fox scat looks like? Cause my mom found scat in a tree trunk that we have, and the scat looked like it had wood chips in it and it was light brown.

 

[songbird]

Opossums love crunchy things like egg shells and heads. They will bite off the head, and stash the body. We had a opossum eating eggs for a week from our hen house...found the critter curled up sleeping in a nest box one day. Early that evening, apparently it came in the little coop door, tried to get an egg from our sweet broody bantam,Clover, and decapitated her. Then it stashed her fat little body under the hen house, and came back for the eggs. My husband found it just as it was going back into the nest box.

Awful, isn't it!

I put rat bait out, it took some the first night, more the next night, then never came back.

 

[mmktdox]

Hello fellow Ontarian! The description of the hair and the fact that heads were eaten sounds like a raccoon to me. We've had the exact same things happen hear and it turned out to be raccoons, confirmed on a security camera! They were getting in where the roof met the wall, a space no bigger than 2 1/2 inches. So we blocked those openings with 2x4 and got a trap from TSC and have trapped and shot four so far. Haven't seen any in five weeks now and my I have not lost any more chickens. Secure the coop, chicken wire doesn't keep out predators if you have any on windows or opeings. Predators can squeeze through unbelievably small spaces and are very diligent about finding ways in. Now that they've found food, they'll be back. Good luck!

 

[TheHenHen]

mmktdox, do you think that something could get in wire cloth with wood around it??

songbird, that is awful and heart breaking. This animal that ate the chick's head, stashed the body underneath the barn (The barn is on bricks)

 

[songbird]

That is how our hen house is. It is like a playhouse raised on cement blocks, and the body was stashed underneath it. There was blood on the wall of the nest box the broody hen had been sitting in.