Three days ago, two of my 6 week chicks were found dead in their house. They were intact, but a lot of their feathers had been pulled out. Their house is raised off the ground several feet, but has a little ladder that leads up to it. We never got around to putting wire across the top of the chicken pen like we meant too, so we were probably asking for trouble. We've had chickens now for almost four years though and never had a predator problem except the neighbors dogs one time. Since that happened, we took out the wire that separated them from the big chickens so they could all go into the building at night they roost in. I closed up the hole leading to their building the first night and everything was fine the next morning. Last night, like an idiot I checked on the chickens twice before I went to bed to make sure they were all put up, but forgot to cover the hole leading into their building. This morning I found one of my hens dead laying on top of the roost boxes where all four of my big chickens lay at night. There aren't any marks on her anywhere and everyone else is okay. We have woods behind our property, but the only thing we've ever seen out there is possum which likes to eat the dog food that's stored on the other side of the building. We had one that came out regularly, which we trapped and took off. I haven't seen any since. We've got the trap set tonight, but I'm a nervous wreck sitting here waiting since I'm not sure what's doing this. My husband works at night and there's no moon out tonight, so I'm not too keen on walking out to the coop. Anyone have any ideas on what would be killing the chickens, but not eating them?
