I have pheasant pens with over 5500 pheasants in it and we have been picking up dead birds with just there heads ripped off but not eaten, anybody have any ideas? The pens have 4ft plastic coated welded wire all the way around and 2” hole net over the top. I’m thinking maybe mink but don’t know where he’s getting in, could a mink climb the wire?

Raccoons would be my guess.

owls

Yeah that’s what I thought but in the past owls have done this but they’ve always eaten the heads, this is just ripping it off

Seen coons do that to chickens

Yes they can climb the wire. As long as they have something to Grasp onto they can climb. My guess would be a Rat. Do you have Rat Poison put out in the area but away from your Pheasants? Or maybe a Weasel or a Mink.

Out coon hunting with hounds seen 25 pound coon go in a hole about 3 inches wide

We’ve had plenty of coons rip the top net and get in but I’m pretty positive I’ve caught them all. I’ve had dp’s set over there and haven’t caught anything in a while

yes I do have rat poison and will set some out but we’ve looked everywhere and there are not any holes where a rat could get through, he could be living in there but we walk it every day and haven’t seen any

2X spook them and get them to fly up into the nets!

Yes mink could climb, and coons can fit through crap you can't belive, in my experience coon will chew the head off first, helped a busy for awhile who was raising a couple thousand quail. We had hawks dive bombing the flight pens then the quail would flush and hit the net on top and the hawk would catch um through the net on a second pass, most of the time they would pull um through sometimes they'd loose one. Could be they can't get the pheasants through the net so there just pulling the head off maybe not. They busted the 2" light weight roof net when the would bomb it that was a tale it was hawks after we saw it happen! He had 2 thousand pheasants too but the hawks didn't bother them maybe cause they had quail. Might not be a hawk but thought is share just in case it may be.
Colt

A couple trail cameras will help solve the problem faster. Why waste time and pheasants. Get some photos and set it up right the first time. Find out what it is and go after it hard.

putting some up now

we raise quail too 60,000 of them but they are in poultry houses, these pheasants are in the flight pens you are talking about. We haven’t seen any hawks and haven’t had any come to the hawk trap so don’t think it is a hawk

I trapped a bunch of cats around chicken pens. The same thing was happing. They would reach In get a hold of the chicken but couldn't get It through the wire and then they would just pull the head off. I bet coons would be able to do that to. The birds are probably asleep up against the wire at night and It would be easy for a critter to reach In.

If they are pulled to one area you have a mink. If they are scattered around probably coon or cat. Coon will walk the boards at the edges of the pens, Conibears will work there.Sometimes they will walk the netting to the support poles.

they are scattered around but we do have three electric wires going around the pen so I don’t think it’s a cat or coon

Trail cameras are set plus a few traps so hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for the help!

We've had 'coons come in and rip the crops open on our chickens and eat little except the contents of the crop.

Like The Beav, I had the same thing and it turned out to be house cats.