Who decapitates in broad daylight?! Hawks - that who

[stephhassler]

Found my sultan hen decapitated next to the water can. She was inside a fence, but close enough for something to grab her apparently. They only free range during daylight hours. So my question is, who does this during the day? We are out in the country and I haven't seen a stray dog in years. Plus, not really dog type of killing. We do have stray cats. Would a cat decapitate? Most of her body was still there, missing her head and some skin and feathers.

She was part of a matched pair that my son was planning to take to the fair this summer. Really bummed now.

Found the dang hawk right after he killed another hen today. I know there is a lot of snow on the ground and food is scarce, but why oh why do they have to eat my chickens!

 

[ThePamperedPullet]

Sounds like a hawk or owl.

 

[stephhassler]

Yeah, maybe hawk. We definitely have red tailed hawks around here. The two or three hawk kills that I have had though, the chickens were pretty well eaten. This reminds me of a racoon - they seem to kill just for fun and not eat anything. I doubt a racoon would be out during the day. We do have plenty of owls, but never during the day.

 

[gsim]

Likely a coon if the head was eaten, and yes, they do come for chickens in the daytime. This is more common in winter as gardens are gone and game in general is scarcer . They will become less afraid of humans then due to hunger.

A man here saw two of them do a tag team on his 8 ft wide run and decapitated three by reaching thru and grabbing them. He saw it from his kitchen window and lost three before getting out there to chase them away.

He was buying hardware cloth mesh the next day.