What "laziness" will get you. A little over a year ago I separated out on of my RI Red chickens from the rest of the flock. Rooster was really hard on her, spurs tore up her feathers on her back. Couple of the other hens ganged up and pecked her head while he mounted her. Easiest fix I saw was to just separate her out and give her space by herself. Didn't want to eat her as she was my most dependable layer. This time of year 6 or so eggs a week.

Built her a little hooch next to the other chicken yard out of pallets and a box for her at night. Worried over the year about something getting in at night, and kept putting off covering it with chicken wire or even putting a door on her box and having to shut it every night and open it every morning.




Woke up to this yesterday:



couple of tiny pieces of "meat" attached to some feathers, but no chicken, or bones.

Muddy smears, no clear track, smallish pad marks, on the roof of her hootch showing where something likely took her out:



We live pretty rural, lots of critters in the area. Very few raccoons here , 2 miles down the road where there's a reservoir perhaps, not so many up here in the sagebrush. Have seen bobcats within a half mile of the house, that could be a possibility. Certainly a coyote, they come through pretty regular. Weasel? maybe. There are lions and bear nearby too. Neighbor's house cat? Figured if it was that it might have tried to eat it there and not carried it away. Must ahve been big enough to clear a pallet to get in, then drag a 3-lb chicken out with it going the other way.

So, I took my Breeze out with me to try to trail it, for a whippet he has a decent nose. Found a few feathers with small piece of skin/meat about 75' from the coop, tracked along out back a bit, lost track, came back and found her head across the west branch of our seasonal creek, 50' or so from the few feathers we had found, with the trail headed east across the major part of the creek.



no tracks visible in the crusted over mud/dirt/rock, so I'm still at a loss as to the perp.

So, last night at sundown I put out the trail cam, hoping whatever it was might come back.

10:07 last night, an hour after a house cat had come around, I got a few pics of this guy. It came back around 0100 this morning too. Good thing the other chicken yard is well built, or I might have to go nighttime hunting:




Haven't seen but one fox in the area, much closer to town, since we moved here in fall '16. Makes sense they're around tho, even considering the trail cam hasn't caught on in the other places I've had it out.

The other thing that bothers me, the night it happened I was sleeping in the little bed as my back has been bothering me. Breeze was with me, woke me around 0100-0200, ran to the dog door which we keep closed, I flipped on the spot light out there which points toward the chickens, looked out the window and didn't see anything, heard the 'yotes making noise 1/4 mile away of so and figured that's what woke him. Now I think he heard that damn fox getting my Rosita. I should learn to trust him better, couple summers back he alerted on a badger at the chicken yard fence. It didn't make it very far away, it wouldn't leave when I went out there. Tenacity has its drawbacks I guess.

Oh well, this will make it easier on me now, and especially my wife when I go hunting. No taking care of two chicken yards any more. One less egg a day means I don't have to try to find someone to barter with for eggs either.

Good job of finding out what happened.

We had chickens for a long time and one day they were all gone.

Found out we had a bunch of grey foxes that liked our place.

They didn't last long and found out that the 300 win mag is to much gun for a fox hide.

Swear George hasn't been out of the house.

300 Winmag on a fox?



did it way overpenetrate?

A grey fox has gotta be the prettiest chicken-killer there is, sorry about the chicken, do you keep the rooster for the music?

Funny, but that was one of the first things I thought of.

Roger gonna be telling me......."Don't blame George"

Wife feeds a family of grey fox here. We've done that for years. Just table scraps, old bread, etc.



They didn't mess with our chickens.

I think my wife prefers the fox to the chickens.

Did have a hawk kill a hen last year. Damn hawk flew right inside the coop. I slammed the door on him.

Lots of greys around here and never a problem with my banties..They roosted high in the pine tree in the front yard..

Then the Great Horned owl found them..

I keep the rooster because.................................




I have chickens!

I may want to let one of the hens sit, when it's time to start thinking about replacements.

And Music!


He is an excellent watchdog for the girls too. The other morning, feeding them in their yard, I was bent over filling the water or something and he set up to "growling". Don't know what else to call it. I stood up, looked around to see if there was a 'yote nearby, or if Dandee the wonder puppy was at the fence. Nope, nothing at ground level. Look up, maybe a quarter mile to the south, and 500' above ground level, was a turkey vulture gaining altitude.

I've seen/heard him do it when other birds are over head nearby too. Marsh hawks (don't correct me! ), Cooper's, and red tails.

And he's an ugly cuss. I call him El Feo.

Here he is as a real youngster, on the left:



A better pic, but still not too good. I can't find the good ones:



and here you can see why I separated out Rosita, you can see the feathers missing on her back:

Fox got some of my daughters chickens last year in broad daylight

When we lived over on the coast in the 90's we kept chickens. Let them sit on a coupla broods. Once, we got six to hatch, 3 roosters in that bunch. When they got older my "little red rooster" kicked them out of the coop. The roosted in the redwoods.................


until the owl got them.

That's not good.

Is it still alive?

G,
I haven’t read the entire thread yet...Sounds like you need Beaver to come down and rectify this problem for you while you sip on sweet tea...I might have to run my Seal 6 night vision gears....Hint. 😬😎

I think coons kill more chickens than anything else around here.

The coon numbers are off the charts since the fur values tanked.

Way too many coons.

But I try and do my part to keep them in check. I'll shoot/trap them all, and in a couple months more coons move in.. It's a never ending cycle. Kinda like hogs.

Question, Neighbor has chickens that run wild through out their 3 acre backyard,

Numerous hawks in the area but none that I know of have ever killed one of those chickens,

Why so?

They do keep a large dog inside the fence, he the Hawk protection?

Mine run loose every afternoon and we even have golden eagles around . We have multiple types of hawks and owls around, and as for the owls, I sometimes don't get the girls and El Feo back inside until nearly sundown, and the owls are getting active by then.

haven't lost a bird.......................yet.

could just be luck...........or the hawks are well fed on other critters.

Dead hawk right there.

Dang Val, if that's your chicken yard in the picture, it's a wonder you have any chickens at all. You must have some well fed varmits there.

Nice work!

This is the only chicken killer we've had issues with over the years.

Nature does what it does. We think we can circle around that and get rid of whatever issues we want. We generally fail.

Love fox. They are just cool critters. And I hate to kill just to kill and waste. No use of hide or meat etc... but sometimes we have to.

I was driving an old county black top road about midnight and saw a Great Horned Owl sitting in the road. Just sitting in the road with his wings sorta spread out from his body. In the headlights the owl looked like he was hurt. I was watching him when he suddenly took flight. When the owl took off it revealed a mallard duck! There are a couple small lakes about a half mile away and it was obvious the owl had snatched a duck off one of the lakes. I figured he set down on the roadway to either kill it or re-grip the duck when I came along. I later began to research the big owls and discovered just how great a predator they are.

a Great Horned Owl will kill a bald eagle if kept in the same enclosure.

Grey's are beautiful foxes. Seem more cat like than canine.

they are mine uses a litter box.

Heard my kids hollering and screaming a couple hours ago. Sure enough, daughter had let the chickens out to pet one, while one of my bird dogs was also out. He grabbed a hen and brought it to me happy as he could be. The hen wasn’t amused though...

My game cam showed a gray fox that was pestering the chickens and got one of the ducks a couple months back. He's moved on...
More common here than the coyotes which seem to come by towards fall.

In the past, coons were the culprits here.

Coons are little a-holes. If coons were people they would all be in jail.

Good detective work!
All chickens seem very vulnerable. .. lots of predators out there, wherever you are..
I try to kill every coyote, skunk or coon that I see on our acreage, especially around the coops. We put a lid on the chicken runs because of the hawks and owls, but that is not enough to prevent all losses.
Trail cams are a great help. We see an occasional mountain lion or fox, but mostly skunks, coons and coyotes. Although I love to see foxes, they are great hunters and the chickens are easy pickings. Putting a stout wire roof on our chickens' runs has been helpful and we do not allow them free range unless we are present. We, and our neighbors, like the eggs and try to keep all the layers safe, which is a true challenge.
Best of luck with your flock.

Sweet pallet fence 😂👍

Must have ripped that idea off of some Tennyseean.

Almost chupacabre proof

We’ve had a new pair of hawks hanging around the farm the last few days . I let a few .22 rounds go and they went to the end of the driveway and perched on another power pole.

Hopefully our four hens are still there when we get back from the lake.