![]() ![]() Coyotes and bobcats are also known to carry off their prey, as are hawks, owls and other birds of prey. Foxes tend to kill or severely injure their prey, then carry them back to their dens, often to feed their kits. If one of your birds seems to have simply disappeared, or if there is nothing but a scattering of feathers in the coop, run or yard, the probable culprit is a fox. It will typically feed on one or two chickens in this manner, then depart, leaving the remains behind. This type of predation pattern often occurs when a raccoon has gotten into a coop at night. This gruesome carnage signifies a common poultry predator, the raccoon. Members of the weasel family will also bite a bird at the base of the skull to kill it before feeding. Weasels, minks, ferrets, badgers and martens wrap themselves around their prey’s body and attack the vent area. If your chicken is alive, with bite marks and lacerations around her vent, or if your bird is deceased, with intestines pulled out through her vent, the predator in question belongs to the weasel family. In this case, the raccoon reached through the fencing and caught hold of your bird’s limb instead of its head. Raccoons will also rip the heads off chickens through fencing, often reaching through at ground level to grab a chicken and pull its head off, leaving its body on the other side of the fence.Ī chicken whose mortal injury was the loss of a limb, such as a leg or a wing, was the victim of a raccoon. A hawk or other bird of prey will then grab the head with its powerful talons and rip it off. Birds of prey will swoop down and scare chickens, who sometimes jump up in fear and get their heads caught in the netting or mesh that covers their run. ![]() If you find your chicken with its head missing, chances are the attacker is a raccoon or a bird of prey, such as a hawk. I hope you never experience this, but if you find your flock has been attacked, here is a reference guide to help you identify the predator so that you can take proper precautions in the future. It’s happened to our flocks a handful of times over the years, enough so that I can look at a victim and identify the predator, whether raccoon, dog, weasel, fox, coyote or other. I hate to hear how birds, sometimes entire flocks, get decimated by nocturnal and diurnal predators. What did that to my chickens?” she asked me. ![]() “It was like something made a hole in their chests and sucked the insides out. Quickly, she took a confused Beckett back to the house and, once he was occupied, returned to investigate. She told Beckett to wait, then approached the henhouse slowly-only to see a quartet of bodies slumped on the ground, motionless. As they drew closer, however, Tara sensed something wrong. Tara and her young son, Beckett, had started the morning like any other: a short stroll in their backyard to the coop where their four hens lived. ![]()
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