Would a hawk rip the head completely off?

[Kovalciks Chickens]

It could be a hawk because it is a Polish. The crown of feathers gets in the way....a lot. I would say it was a hawk since it was gutted and then it might have taken the head for a snack or to feed it to its babies. It most likely wasnt an owl, since it was the day. If it was anything else it would have taken it with them. We did have a coon get in our coop once and killed 140 birds with her babies teaching them to hunt. They just kinda bit the neck severing the artery and then ripped em up It was a sick sight but... I would still stick with hawk. But they do like to carry off their victims to go and eat in the trees. But their are some that eat their prey on the ground. Im sorry for your loss though.

 

[jeremy]

I just encountered this same exact situation last Wednesday. In the morning when I let my girls out they were all their and fine, I came home that evening and all of my hens seemed very disturbed. I went in the run and found one of my girls in front of the door, headless and with her chest opened up and completely cleaned out. Mind you, this was around 5 in the afternoon. It doesn't get dark here until about 8:45. I've never heard of raccoons or opossums hunting in the daytime (well, ones that aren't rabid, etc.) so I assumed it had to be a hawk. My run is uncovered and we've seen hawks in the area before but never had any issues until now. There's a large murder of crows that live in our neighborhood and they've earned their keep by running hawks or seagulls off every time they get close but I guess this time they weren't on patrol.

I did set a live trap that night and that same night and the following I caught 2 opossums, however I don't think they were what got my girl. They were probably just looking for an easy meal of the cat food that happened to be in the trap. Either way, same scenario so I'm assuming that your predator was a hawk too. Looks like we should both go invest in some netting and cover our runs.