What kind of predator would do this?

[pkw]

I have a friend who went out for not even 2 hours and when she and her husband returned home something had killed all her adult ducks and adult chickens. Whatever it was didn't eat any of them. She got lucky because there happened to be a nest of duck eggs that just hatched in a hidden place and also one of her hens was sitting on a nest of chicken eggs which hatched later that evening even though the hen got killed. It didn't lessen the loss of her adult birds. I know where we live there is a mountain lion in the area and there are coyotes (which is what she thinks got her flock). I don't know what other predators lives area here in a town near Edwards AFB.

 

[Friend of Feathers]

Did the attack happen at night?

 

[bobbi-j]

Maybe a dog? When the coyotes wiped out my chickens a couple of years ago, they did it over a period of several days and never left any laying around. I think they just took what they could eat.

 

[smarsh]

That sounds much more like a domestic dog. most wild animals don't over kill, and they would eat at least a portion of one. Only dogs would feel comfortable enough in a town environment to spend that much time killing. wild animals would be in and out.

 

[Straubby]

i dont know if you have them but ask her if the tops of the heads were bloody, weasels will kill all the chickens in a coop and then come back and take what they want at leisure if they arent cleaned up.
weasels usually strike the top of the head,sometimes eating the brain.sorry so gruesome but alot of people i know consider them the worst predator because they kill everything they find.

 

[pkw]

We live in an area that is mostly desert and her place is the only house on her side of the road and all her chickens and ducks are free ranged within her property and at night they go into their chicken/duck house. This happened while it was still daylight (probably between 5 pm -7pm time frame).

 

[Kev]

If there were also a lot of feathers all over the yard, like there was a pillow fight.. that's probably dog or dogs. Many dogs will kill purely for fun and excitement for it. They have great fun killing a bird and once it dies they get bored and move on to the next one.. that is why losses to dogs often are so devastating and fast.

The problem with dogs is not all owners try to keep theirs contained.. like they just leave the gates open.. or don't keep the space under the gate blocked up... so if the dog wants to go on a walk... seems to be a worse problem in sparsely populated areas.

If they see a dog coming around sniffing around looking excited, probably was one involved in killing- he came back to see if there was more fun to be had. Very typical for livestock killing dogs to keep coming back repeatedly.

 

[bigstack]

YEP! Dogs kill for fun!!! True predators kill for food and they would not leave all if any behind!

Im so sorry for your friends loss!

Good luck and God Bless!

P.s. They will be back!

 

[fancbrd4me02]

It sounds like dogs. Most dogs are descended from dogs that have been selected for the ability to kill more than one animal at a time. Let me put it this way, if you were an ancient human hunter and you wanted a dog to help you hunt down prey for your families food, would you want a dog to kill just one duck or every duck it could catch? The answer is all the ducks. Humans have selected dogs to have a high prey drive because it suited our purposes. Dogs do not kill just for fun, they kill a lot of birds at once because they have been selected for that tendency. They may enjoy the hunt and kill but that too is a trait we have selected for. Back in the day they used to have competitions to see how many vermin a dog could dispatch in a certain time frame.

 

[pkw]

Thanks everyone. I didn't think it would be a coyote because everytime a coyote kills something they always howl for others to join in. It really wouldn't be that hard for a dog to come into their yard either.

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