What would have skinned the neck of my young bantam rooster?

[bethanyrae]

Junior (13 wk Bantam) didn't come in to roost as he always did, and the next day we found his body in some tall grasses just out of their pen where, being a flier, he will sometimes explore.

The feathers and skin were gone from his neck, and there were feathers all over the place.

Nothing really seemed to be eaten as we would have expected to find.

What would have done this? This is our first loss, so we don't have any experience to fall back on.

Thanks,
bethanyrae

 

[~*Sweet Cheeks*~]

Coon or possum. Does it really matter?

There's ALWAYS going to be preditors that want to eat our chickens.

It's up to us to protect them the best we can by providing preditor proof coops that we ALWAYS lock them up in at night if we want them to stay alive.

 

[bethanyrae]

Do they come out in the daytime? That's when we think it happened. We thought it might have been a hawk, but it doesn't seem they would have left so much meat behind.