# found headless chickens?



## gwithrow (Feb 5, 2005)

something got in the coop this morning, early and by the time I raced outside...nightie and slippers.....across the cow pasture...dodging well you know...with a mega spotlight.....all I could see was the reflection of eyes.... itmoved off under or thru a gate and around....and back over the fence or thru it further down, then back to the original spot....

at daylight we found three headless chickens...

now to be fair, the chicken keeper didn't close up the pop up door....was relying on a couple of strands of hot wire.....that was too loose and apparently not much of a deterrent....how many times do I have to stress predator prep????????...ok that is another issue...so what would kill and take off the heads....and then leave the rest of the bird?...of course I interrupted the act so given the chance it might have hauled off the rest of the birds...doesn't sound like coyote to me....****? bobcat? 

I am sure tonight it will all be closed up tight...I guess as always it all comes down to me doing almost all of it...


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## CNCfamily (Sep 13, 2010)

Hm, i don't know. The only thing we've ever had get to our chickens took the whole flock in one night, just left a few feathers. We suspect the neighborhood fox had a litter of kits and was feeding a lot of hungry mouths! We just moved back to this house a couple months ago and had a skunk living in the coop, but now that i have birds in there, i haven't seen him. Hopefully i don't find out the hard way that skunks take birds heads!


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## unregistered168043 (Sep 9, 2011)

**** are known to pull the heads off chickens.


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## mitchell3006 (Apr 1, 2010)

Sounds like a **** to me. They will kill multiple birds if given the chance. The best option is to kill it. Relocating just moves the problem in on someone else.


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## LFRJ (Dec 1, 2006)

Ditto. Raccoon - or sounds like what we typically find - although we also find that they've filleted the breast open, and tossed the gizzard aside.


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## shdybrady (Aug 26, 2011)

I would have to say its a weasel. Thats what I have always been told take the heads off. Good luck on catching it though. They are tricky.


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## Elsbet (Apr 2, 2009)

raccoons, definitely. Lost a whole flock that way once. It was hideous.

Owls will also behead fowl, but since it was in the coop, and you saw the predator moving away, I'm sure that isn't what it is. But I lost my white silkie roo to an owl kill. I had no idea what killed it, until a local poultry farmer friend told me that she had been losing a lot of her free range hens to owl attacks, and that was how they killed.


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## kfrancisco92 (Mar 21, 2012)

ugh, sounds like our chicken night massacre also. The one night my husband didnt shut the door where we were keeping them (not big enough for a coop yet besides our fat cornishX) and came back the next day to my horror (my chickens are my pets) we found two cornish X decapitated with no blood around them. when we pulled up i knew something was off because seven or so chickens came up to the truck and they were not allowed outside at the time. quite a few of them ended up in our baby chicken cage we had there and then after a few days and a few more came home we found we were missing five total 2 cornish cross (headless  ) two turkeys and one duck  i know my ducky had to of died because he was getting fat and couldnt waddle very fast. needless to say i was heart broken. i am still unsure of what ate mine also.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

We have always been told that headless chickens or ducks were caused by owls. They will decimate a flock if you don't get rid of them. They swoop down, grab the chicken/duck head and then fly back up tearing it off.


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

I was a volunteer, working with Ag department for 20 years in my State. I have delt many times with this problem and my with own poultry. We are most likely looking at a Hawk. Most Hawks are to small to carry off the bird and only take the neck and head. Around here we have Owls and Eagles, they usually leave the head and neck and eat everything else. Unless they are juveniles. As for Raccons, mostly just egg raiders.


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## gwithrow (Feb 5, 2005)

I don't think this was an owl, it moved along the ground....turning around once in awhile to see if I was still there....it was before dawn....and a little foggy...I could easily see the reflection of the eyes....but not enough light to see a body...but we are setting a live trap tonight....and I will see that the coop door is latched...and the electric wire has been improved...if we don't catch anything inside the wire close to the coop, we will move it just outside the wire tomorrow night....and tonight my boots will be by the door....no more slippers in the pasture after dark....


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

My vote goes to ****. I also suggest killing it. I'm lucky that some of the locals come up and hunted out all the ***** around here. Good riddance.


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## PD-Riverman (May 24, 2007)

How are you monitoring your coop at night?




gwithrow said:


> I don't think this was an owl, it moved along the ground....turning around once in awhile to see if I was still there....it was before dawn....and a little foggy...I could easily see the reflection of the eyes....but not enough light to see a body...but we are setting a live trap tonight....and I will see that the coop door is latched...and the electric wire has been improved...if we don't catch anything inside the wire close to the coop, we will move it just outside the wire tomorrow night....and tonight my boots will be by the door....no more slippers in the pasture after dark....


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## CarolT (Mar 12, 2009)

If you do a search on identify chicken predator, it lists what you usually find for different ones. My vote is for an opossum. They tend to take off the head for some reason. Usually a raccoon will go for crop breast and gizzard before moving to next bird. Weasels don't usually stop before they kill every bird...

What color were the eyes and did you look for tracks in the blood?


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

one and in a enclosure possum 

more then one and "lacerations" ****

one and in the open possum or Owl!

by the way lost a duck hen just the other night. in the open. was thinking possum but since they have been getting penned no problem.

Pretty sure it was a owl.

Head and neck gone on a big skovy girl... at first thought it one of my drakes


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## no1butcherman (Sep 6, 2007)

It's sounds like a MINK to me! 2 beady little red devil eyes and you can't see his dark brown body in the dark. They bite the head off and drink the blood. Raccoon's eat the craw never feed corn in the evening.


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## Judy in IN (Nov 28, 2003)

Ditto on the MINK. I had my birds inside a locked, metal-sided house a couple of years ago. All we can figure is that it got in beside my fancy roll door. ( the one hubby built to make it easy to clean the house. 

We cemented around the bottom of the walls, and filled in the space around the door, making it immobile.

Solved the problem, though! No more headless chickens!


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