chicken predator ID

[Michel Boulay]

From what I know of weasels, they are nocturnal and would of gone after chickens in the coop. The damage would have been greater to, they are blood thirsty creatures and would have killed more then one chicken.
Could be a migrating kind of bird predator. Something that would happen in the open. Caught by suprise and left with parts of the carcass. Probably won’t happen again cause its gone south??? If your chickens are still free ranging and nothing happen then whatever got to that one is gone. A source of food is important for a predator at this time of year and free range chickens are an easy target. I would imagine it would have been back. So a migating predator easy meal on his way south.
Stray cats are good predators creeping up on its pray, but here there would have been some kind of struggle and the dog would have heard something.
Or Colonel Mustard in the dining room….
Mike

[Scott G]

Weasels can be very active during the day as well, not strictly nocturnal. I have seen many weasels (ermine) during the daylight hours. Now that I think about it, that is the only time I’ve seen weasels – in the daylight – ’cause when’s its dark I can’t see them… :p Weasels are close cousins to wolverines, in other words, nasty critters. I’ve seen rabbits & blue grouse they have decapitated. Guess we’ll have to wait until the next episode…

[Carl Russell]

Okay…… I can’t resist…. My first reaction, as recently mentioned by Geoff, is that I think it unlikely it was a bird.

Weasels and Mink are very likely to eat off the head and neck, as in this case. Weasels however are much less likely to eat much else. This is because they are very small and very active, so as Mike says they often kill more than one bird. They eat off the head because that is where there is spurting blood, which is actually what they eat. There is much more energy per minute in blood, and they are so vicious and such good killers that they will more successful at fulfilling themselves if they just go kill another and drink the blood, than if they take the time to gnaw on flesh.

Minks are more apt to eat more of the bird, as in this case. They also eat off the head for the blood meal, but their larger size makes them more confident and more apt to stay on the kill. They also will cover a larger range, like an Otter, and may not have killed more because they have moved on…. they may be back within two weeks of the original kill.

The only bird kill I ever saw that resembled this turned out to be a Skunk, also a Mustelid.

If it were me I would have taken some of the innards and put them in a Have-a-Heart, preferably the liver, by heart and lungs are bloody enough to attract a predator coming back to its kill.

I think that a Fox would carry the bird off. Raccoons kill for the blood meal too, but are much more nocturnal.

Carl

[near horse]

@boulami 30998 wrote:

Or Colonel Mustard in the dining room….
Mike

I was thinking Colonel Sanders in the kitchen with the deep fat fryer …..

Seriously, I have seen a feral cat stalk and catch a pocket gopher and first thing after killing it was crunch off and consume the head. Surprised me. But since they don’t bite with their front teeth but use the carnassial molars, they need to be able to open their mouth wide enough to crush the skull. So it might need to be bigger than a weasel although I’ve never seen a weasel eating something that large.

We need to get some DNA samples back to the lab – stat. Andy?

[Carl Russell]

@near horse 31010 wrote:

….. So it might need to be bigger than a weasel although I’ve never seen a weasel eating something that large.

We need to get some DNA samples back to the lab – stat. Andy?

Weasels more typically just tear the throat open to get the blood flow, but I have seen birds killed by Weasels that had skull and neck eaten.

We definitely need to revisit the forensic procedure here. Next time Andy tape of the area and we can all fly in for in-the-field investigation….:rolleyes:

Carl

[Scott G]

…and don’t forget the chalk mark outline…absolutely essential. BTW, I’m still standing by my weasel…:p (did that sound right??)

[Andy Carson]

This is funny… I don’t think a weasel is out as a suspect, ESP if they can be active in the day. I am not weirded out that there weren’t more chickens killed, as I was home and outside at the time. My dog was too. Maybe the rt of the chicken ran over closer to us and the animalmdidn’t want to risk it. I can’t the area from where I was, but it’s probably only 200 ft away (on the other side of the house). The other potential confounder here is that although I know what time the chicken was killed (roughly), I didn’t find it until many hours later. So it’s possibly it was killed by one animal and another animal was eating on it before I found it. I have a few barn cats who might have been at it, although they are normally more interested in killing things than eating them. Whatever was at it couldn’t have been very large, as there was a bunch of grass clipping around the carcass that was undisturbed. I think next time I will set a trap at Carl recommended. The other clue, actually, is that there hasn’t been another chicken loss. I was expecting a repeat offense. Maybe the additional vigilance was enough to ward off whatever this was. I have been watching this area pretty closely.

[Carl Russell]

@Countymouse 31029 wrote:

….The other clue, actually, is that there hasn’t been another chicken loss. I was expecting a repeat offense. Maybe the additional vigilance was enough to ward off whatever this was. I have been watching this area pretty closely.

…and don’t forget the chalk mark outline…absolutely essential. BTW, I’m still standing by my weasel…:p (did that sound right??)

This is getting so far fetched…. I know nothing I say in this context can be taken seriously, as I am so far removed from the situation, BUT….

I am going to re-emphasize the Mink. I trapped 5 out of our chicken coop a few years ago. I was alerted to their presence only after a dead chicken was being fed on. I stuck it in the trap and caught one the next day. I thought it was the only one, so relaxed. A week later I watched my daughter go into the coop, and saw a Mink run out of the back side of the coop. I put the rest of the carcass in a trap and caught another one. I think I had to get some chicken livers out of the freezer, but eventually caught all five. Then the egg production rebounded. Even though they are vicious predators, they were actually bypassing the chickens except for the one that alerted me, and eating eggs.

As I said before, they also keep a larger range, and often are more relaxed because they find other food sources. Just because another bird hasn’t been killed doesn’t mean that Mink are not coming around.

Although Weasels are definitely chicken killers, in fact they are so unlikely to leave them alone that I am doubtful this was a Weasel. And don’t be fooled into thinking a dog can scare a Weasel away. If they aren’t coming around it is for some other reason.

Mink also are not afraid of dogs, and just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t around either. If you have a laying flock, you might evaluate whether you think they are laying up to snuff….. you may be feeding some Minks that just took advantage of a inattentive bird in the yard.

For what that is worth…..:rolleyes:

Carl

[Andy Carson]

Egg production has gone down by roughly 33% in the last month or so, but I think this is the winter. Still, I think I’ll set a trap and see what happens. I can’t see how it would hurt. I wonder if I’ll just catch the barn cats… more clues can’t hurt. Too bad weasels and mink aren’t scared of dogs, my dog is getting to be a a wonderful guard… I wonder how close mink have to be to water. I’ve only got a small pond on the place, and it is dry in late summer. The nearest creek that runs all year long is probably a quarter mile away, but it’s across open fields. There’s a whole string of large ponds about a half mile away through the woods, though.

[jen judkins]

This whole conversation is fascinating. My birds are down quite abit in production, even for winter with a light on. I found a dead rooster in the coop this am. Roughed up, but nothing major. We have so many birds, its hard to assess whether we are losing birds on a regular basis, but I think we must be. The fox that normally haunts us has not been around for months. Would a mink or two be able to sneak off with a bird or two a month without my notice? Some days we have no eggs at all…in a flock of over 30 hens.

[Carl Russell]

@Countymouse 31029 wrote:

…. The other potential confounder here is that although I know what time the chicken was killed (roughly), I didn’t find it until many hours later. So it’s possibly it was killed by one animal and another animal was eating on it before I found it. I have a few barn cats who might have been at it, although they are normally more interested in killing things than eating them. …..

So…. true to forensic TV now we have a plot reversal….

I woke up this morning thinking…. DOH.

I’m not actually trying to make this more complicated than it needs to be, but one of the reasons there have not been any other killings is that maybe there never was an attack. That may explain why you never heard much noise. This bird may have had some other reason why it died, and then it was a scavenger (barn cat) that came in and ate it where it was. That may have been enough to bother the flock to stay away.

The absence of feathers scattered around indicates either a surgical kill, which is highly unlikely in my experience, especially in a open space, or the bird died of its own accord without attack……..

Not being there I am starting to feel like Richard Castle drumming up a new plot for my next novel…… where is Nikki Heat when you need her…..:p(Netflix addiction :confused:)

Carl

[Scott G]

Another stroke against capital punishment. Don’t throw the switch yet…

[near horse]

Perhaps it was a cult carrying out a ritual killing. Andy – your farm might be located at a portal to the “other side”. So keep your eyes open for zombies and get out the garlic …..

[Andy Carson]

More clues. I set a couple live traps baited with chicken livers. One near the place I found the chicken and one near the coop. In only a couple hours after dark, the livers were gone from the trap close to where I found the dead chicken. No animal in the trap though. The animal dug underneath the live trap and reached up from underneath to pull the liver out from though the floor of the trap. I can’t think of many animals with the smarts, dexterity, and size to do this. I think it has to be a raccoon. Thing is it’s not news to me that there are raccoons around here. If I catch one, who’s knows if it was the “perp”…

[Simple Living]

Were you able to dust for paw prints? Any tire (paw) tracks around the trap? On another note, I too lost a hen the other day. But thanks to my neighbor and a baseball bat, the two wondering Labs (no collers) were run off before they got any more. He tracked them across the mile and tried to figure out where they belong but lost them in the woods. He has young children and I have livestock. We both agreed that if we see them back hunting again, they will get the three S’s …. shoot shovel and Shutup. I hope you catch the perp Andy, nothing like loosing livestock to a preditor.

Gordon

[Author]

Posts