# Dead Chickens



## chma4 (Feb 27, 2005)

Something is killing our chickens and leaving carcasses everywhere. We had 30+ chickens. We are down to 8 hens and a rooster after just 5 days. 
This animal is just leaving carcasses everywhere. We had 1 night of peace locking the hens all up securely, but this am , there were 6 dead IN the coupe, 1 dead in the barn, and one drug out in the yard. 
This animal is apparently brave and not afraid of entering our barn to get to the birds. Soon we will be out of chickens, and are afraid it will turn on our baby goats or bunnies. What are we dealing with here? 
IT has to be pretty small to get into the places it is managing to get into. It is dragging some of the carcasses out the bottom of the tube gate, so again, it must be small. 
Why would an animal kill so many and just leave the carcasses? How do we get rid of it? 
My husband is going to sit out in the coup tonight with a gun. I am afraid this critter is too smart to be caught? He sat out one night by the pile of dead chickens, but saw nothing.
I am located in NJ
Christina


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## Guest (May 25, 2010)

Sounds like a raccoon.


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## chma4 (Feb 27, 2005)

I went out and found a print in the mud. It is some sort of dog. I think a fox. It is a bit bigger than I had imagined a foxes print to be though. It is 2-3 inches in diameter.
So, any ideas on how to catch a fox?


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

What do the carcasses look like? What damage is done?


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## chma4 (Feb 27, 2005)

Most look like they were just carried around by the neck. Some are missing heads and necks, some are eaten out from the rear. Like I said, most are just dead and laying there.


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

Hmmm.. a fox is going to carry off the bird.. you will usually only find a few feathers and some blood.. still thinking..

upon further consideration and the large number killed at one time and the carcasses left laying.. I am going to vote dog.

A 'wild' predator is going to take what it needs to eat. Not do the overkill thing too much.
A ****, a weasel etc.. will kill right in the coop. They aren't going to go to all the trouble to drag a chicken, much less 6 birds, out into the yard.

You could have very young coyotes just learning to hunt, but they can't hunt silently. They are going to yip and call.

There was a Boston Terrier that got into the barn one night and slaugtered 7 of mine one night..


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## Idahoe (Feb 4, 2006)

I had a bobcat kill several birds but ate the heads off of only a few. A raccoon, fox or bobcat will kill a bunch of them and only eat a few. Good luck, I hope you find a way to secure your pens


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

Yes it sounds like you will need to tighten up your coop. Until you can secure the coop I would run an electric fence wire around the coop and drape some bacon or tinfoil smeared with peanut butter or grease on the hot wire.

What shape is the footprint? Dog prints are a bit rounder then fox and bobcats are rounder than dog prints plus they don't show toenails. A picture of the trap would help.

It sounds like a dog to me. A live trap will work on dogs if it's big enough.


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## chma4 (Feb 27, 2005)

It is an elongated dog print with toe nails. 
Our pens are lined with hot wire. It comes through two sets of fencing with hot wire to get to my barn. My coup is in the barn and lined with chicken wire on all sides. It broke a hole through the chicken wire where it meets the concrete floor. 
I am out of ideas. I am almost afraid to put the rest of my chickens in a safe cage, for fear it might take one of my baby nigerian dwarf goats next.


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## WstTxLady (Mar 14, 2009)

Domestic dogs usually have a round pad pattern & coyotes have a elongated pad patter...longer then wide. Fox the same. Any canine will have nails showing in the print, cats dont.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

Dogs normally aren't too cautious around leghold traps. The important thing to remember is the distance between the tip of the nose and the front foot. That determines how far to set the pan of the trap from the bait.

Or what works really well is to put the bait or lure back under something so the animal has to step around as it tries to reach the smell with it's nose.

Then during the daytime when your animals aren't contained put something over the trap and secure it so your animals can't reach it and get caught.


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## asti (May 18, 2010)

Sorry to hear about your chickens chma4!
I found this website has some very nice pictures:
http://www.bear-tracker.com/mammals.html

I would be out with a gun as well... good luck !
cathie


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## Guest (May 25, 2010)

Maybe one of these sites will help:

http://www.raising-chickens.org/chicken-predators.html

For this second one, look at the left menu. Click to see details about each predator, including paw prints.

http://professorchickenspredators.webs.com/


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## RiverPines (Dec 12, 2006)

Can you get a pic of the prints?

To get in the coop it would have to be a big enough of an entrance.

We are in ****, fox, weasel heaven here being by the river.
Our coop is vermin proof and we lock up everyone at night.

We only loose birds if we forget to close the coop.

We also have a live trap set all the time.

Got any live traps?

We have 2 sizes, one for small like weasels and one large for big ***** and such.


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## chma4 (Feb 27, 2005)

Sounds like I definitely have a fox on my hands from doing the reading on the sites you have provided (thank you). Now we have to figure out how to shoot the bugger. I have a guy coming who snares these things. Hopefully that works. I wont use a foot trap that snaps shut. I don't think that is humane. I will also set a live trap I have. I dont think it is big enough, but it cant hurt.


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## hengal (Mar 7, 2005)

Thats a bummer. Sorry for your losses. We found a headless one lying in the coop the other day. Everyone else was fine. A friend of mine lost almost all hers in the last two weeks to what they finally discovered was a hawk carrying them off. So many different types of predators out there.


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## WstTxLady (Mar 14, 2009)

shot gun or .22 & a varmint call would bring the fox in fast for a good shot


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

It doesn't sound like a fox to me.

You could hang a snare in the opening it made in the chicken wire.


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## digApony (Oct 8, 2009)

I thought of a dog first off. I would think any other wild animal would take the chicken's and eat them.

I've had experiences with dogs that kill but don't eat.

Good luck,

digApony


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## JasoninMN (Feb 24, 2006)

I would guess a mink or weasel. Fox will usually return and carry off all the birds they killed to stash them for later. They will also easily slip under electric fencing and through wire.


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## Guest (May 25, 2010)

digApony said:


> I thought of a dog first off. I would think any other wild animal would take the chicken's and eat them.
> 
> I've had experiences with dogs that kill but don't eat.


I know first hand that raccoons will come back every night and kill a bunch of them and just eat a little off of them and leave the bodies scattered everywhere.

That's why my first reply was raccoon.


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## digApony (Oct 8, 2009)

ladycat said:


> I know first hand that raccoons will come back every night and kill a bunch of them and just eat a little off of them and leave the bodies scattered everywhere.
> 
> That's why my first reply was raccoon.


I didn't know that. I know Weasles killed quite a few of our chickens when we lived in Michigan and left them lay.

Thanks.


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## thequeensblessing (Mar 30, 2003)

Before we built our varmint-proof pheasant coop, we had a pair of raccoons working our coop together. We'd find the coop littered with the dead, headless bodies of pheasants. After 2 nights of devastating losses, we finally sat up outside in the dark with a .22 rifle. When we heard a commotion at the coop, we turned on a spotlight and saw the pair working together on our birds. Needless to say, they visited us for the last time that night! 
I haven't seen ***** actually drag a carcass away though. They usually eat what they want and then leave the rest where it lay.


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## bigfoot2you (Oct 3, 2007)

I too lost a bunch of my good hens this spring!! Their heads were pulled off and gone and they were eaten from the rear into the guts. Some cleaned up pretty good and some nibbled on .........turned out to be a fisher cat...........we didn't kill it, dang it, but it seems to have moved on. We are also locking the few I have left in the coop every night. Never touched the geese or ducks? Just chickens...........:flame:


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## Dazlin (Nov 26, 2007)

Sorry about your poor chickens...hope you get the killer!


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## mommagoose_99 (Jan 25, 2005)

I am a pretty good tracker and track identifier. My grampa taught me to watch for tracks in the woods when I was little. Foxes walk in a straight line or so that is the way their tracks look. One foot in front of the other with the back foot landing in the front foottrack. Their feet are not all that much bigger than a large Maine **** Cat. Foxes weigh less than 20 pounds. We have a small coyote in our back yard. His tracks look like a long slender dog track. This guy is beautiful but smaller than most coyotes I have seen. He has stayed away from our chicken complex while the fox has even been up to our back porch. I wish they would eat more woodchucks. There are dozens of woodchucks on our property.
Linda


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## chma4 (Feb 27, 2005)

We set up a baby monitor in the coup, and of coarse it was quiet all night. No birds missing or dead! It's like they know your watching?


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

A good outdoor dog would go a long way to keeping the riff raff out of the yard.


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## jrejhkids (Dec 14, 2009)

We had that happen several years ago. Our culprit was skunks. They came in to kill and just left the bodies there.

~jrejhkids


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## ufo_chris (Apr 30, 2010)

Any updates?
Did you shoot/catch or see the culprit yet???


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