What is taking my chickens?

[ClydesdaleSocks]

We have lost 5 chickens in the last 2 weeks. We free range our chickens during the day and lock them up in the coop at night. The first two were out of our 15 week old pullet flock. They kept going into the woods and we lost 2. All we found were the feathers in the woods - a big circle of feathers, no blood, no body parts, only feathers. They were eaten in the middle of the day. The next two were out of the same flock - we were out of town, the farm sitter said 2 didn't come up. Then on Saturday came the biggest insult - one of our full grown Buff's got snatched at the coop (in the middle of an open yard, next to the barn) and eaten in the middle of the pasture...in the middle of the day. Again, all I found was the pile of feathers in the middle of the pasture - no blood, bones, or guts. I haven't seen anything and haven't caught anything on the game camera. I'm right now in the process of putting 2x4 wire around a 1.5 acre piece of our "backyard" and putting electrified smooth wire around the bottom of it. The chickens are currently (very unhappily) locked in their respective coops until the chicken yard goes up.

So...what's been eating them? It blows my mind that they're getting eaten in the middle of the day. Is the chicken yard even going to help? If I still lose chickens once the fence goes up, I'll probably get a mini-donkey to put in there with the chickens. My full size donkey is too bonded with the horses to be moved apart from her herd.

 

[ChickenPox]

Probably a dog.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Probably fox or coyote. A fox can jump a very high fence too. A large hawk can carry off a chicken.

ETA

Dog is a good possibility too.

 

[nikolaj21]

Dog coyote fox pretty much any predator animal I would recommend setting up traps u will catch it sooner or later could be a very large snake

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I doubt a snake would leave a big circle of feathers.

 

[islandgirl82]

My guess would be fox. They will stake out a site and wait for the right moment to attack. I lost several ducks and chickens to them and the only evidence they left were rings of feathers. The day I finally saw what it was was when I heard the commotion from the only hen I had left and found the fox standing at the edge of my pond looking at me and my poor solitary hen swimming with the ducks. I staked that little imp out two weeks before I finally got it. They're tricky and they don't care what time of day or night it is. .. especially when they have young to feed or food supplies are running low when is cold.