the other day found dead chicken in yard by gate and feathers off the back and feathers around and no other damage. these are big chickens.........heavy reds. today came home and found dead chicken in the yard and feathers all around and just back torn somewhat. looked in chickenyard...........freerange..........and piles of red feather and some black where one of the black chickens escaped. the other day did see a red tail hawk in the neighborhood. was debating if some small dog which I don't know how would get into the chicken yard. now have maybe 4 left. did see one that was bedraggled and back torn but could not get her yet. so does this sound like a hawk?
All of my hawk attacks look like my chickens were hit with such force that they were flattened and all of the insides were cleaned out. Not much left to them except the carcass. Doesn't really sound like a hawk attack to me. We had a fox that was only taking the heads off for a while. There was huge piles of feathers in that case. He either only took the heads or the entire bird. Not to sure what it could be.
I have seen more than my share of hawk attacks. I have lost 100s of birds over the last 30 years to them and they usually split the bird wide open eating its breast and all of its insides out with a ring of feathers around the body. If you have an enclosed pen and no small dogs could be getting to them, I guess it could be a young hawk that hasnt learned how to kill a larger bird. It still sounds like a small dog to me though. I think if it were a hawk you would be seeing talon marks on it somewhere. I hope you find out what it is, and soon. I think it wont be long until it makes a kill if it is that determined.
