What is it? Weasel, possum or skunk? Help!

[smarsh]

i am certain it is not a weasel or mink. i lost many chickens to these back on the farm as a kid, and they were always head eaters. my bet is possum but i am a little surprised by the day time activity. i suspect a raccoon would try to drag it somewhere. please keep us informed.

 

[quailraisingMan]

I was going to say raccoon XD

 

[Mr chicken dude]

You say daylight hours......

I hear that Raccoons will eat the intestines out but I also hear that they will chomp the head off and run with......

A couple years ago we had a Opossum and it was outside in the middle of the day..... Now you know and I know that Possums aren't exposed to be out in the middle of the day and if they are they're is definatley something wrong with it....It was quickly dispatched with a .22

Collin.

 

[JCoogle]

I would set a live trap to try and cahtch the culprit. It souns bad but if it kills another chicken I would place it in the trap closr to were you found it because it should come back to finish it. If not use wet car/dog food or raw chicken.

 

[deerman]

Check the beaks on your chickens, for signs of blood. If you are where the water freeze, the chicken will start canibalism if they run out of water.

They will eat the others starting at the back end.

Only wild predator I know would be a possum, most other start on the head area or crop. Most would be at night except bird of prey, which go for the meat like breast first.

Sound like it one of your chickens, they would only do it during the day also.

 

[Bo Jacker]

I have past experience with these lil ******** and what I did was pull out my good ol 22 and shot the lil ******** head off.

 

[KGreene]

 

[Poco]

Yes, something very similar happened to my chickens too. One chicken had her intestines pulled out- it looked like the belly was partially eaten. Another chicken was missing all her rump feathers. There weren't any teeth marks that I could tell- no chunks missing. The other two chickens seemed to have died of shock because there was nothing I could see wrong with them. There was only one survivor. She was the bottom-of-the-pecking-order chicken. I think it happened early morning, maybe before it was very light. My dad said he heard something while it was dark and turned on the light and looked out- but didn't hear anything more so went back inside.

The sticky article suggests it was something weasel-like, but I have never seen a weasel before. Not near here or anywhere. Other forums suggest that weasels bite the neck/head and drink the blood, which is not consistent with what I saw. I didn't notice blood on any of the other chickens, besides a few small spots were it was obviously from the feathers being pulled out.

However I have seen or heard lots of every other predator living around here (besides rats, but I know they are around). Whatever it was, it had to be able to jump or climb about three feet high from the inside of the run into the coop door (there were feathers everywhere and the one with the bare rump was still up top). It got through a small hole at the bottom of the fencing where it got turned up and slightly dug under- maybe 2-3 inched in diameter. I'm not sure that even a baby opossum could have fit. Another possibility is skunk?