trying to help a friend out with his predator problem

he has been getting 1 dead turkey eaten in this same way each night he didn't tell me how long for but at least a few nights

my son and I sat out for a while last night to see what we could do but with work the next morning I could only stay so long

any ideas on the culprit?

the turkeys are in a electo net pen in a field about 3 hundred yards from the house

he also lost 3 chickens last night but they don't seem eaten much

owl.??

My first assumption is always coon and that there's a place they can get under the netting.

here are the chicken picks
they are in the same 80 acre field but at the east end electo net with a green house

I would have to guess a red fox. I had that happen exactly the same way with chickens one time. A neighbor seen the fox running across the field with a chicken in it’s mouth.
Made a flat set using some feathers and caught the thief on the first night.

I was thinking coon for the chickens any way

he has had some traps out but nothing with them near the chicken dinner on the other side of the netting , I think time to move the traps back to the small woods were there are den trees that I have trapped around during season and pulled a bunch of coon.

its an Owl,
Fox would carry away its kill, coon would eat more than has been eaten, skunk, mink or weasel would eat less. Do not discount a house cat, especially with the breast meat eaten.

I had coon kill nearly 20 chickens last year and many were never touched after they were killed. Some barely had a mark on them. They seemed to kill several, then only eat one. This happened over the course of a week. I ended up killing 4-5 families of coon that week.

spent the night in a field with a gun and light , saw nothing , heard song dogs off in the distance , heard one owl, no birds lost over night with myself and son camped in the field.

had a number of traps out back along the woods edge 100 and 150 yards from the birds and nothing was touched.

I killed 4 small coon last night that were getting too close to my chicken pen. Looks like the young of the year off on their own and getting into trouble. I caught em coming up from the woods behind the house just as it turned good and black out last night.

my son is enjoying this even if we aren't getting any predators , the weather has been perfect and I think he is more excited about camping under the starts , although camping under the stars and hunting is good . what a show it was , satellites and shooting stars , the milkyway is so bright and the big dipper is huge .

I need to grab the binoculars to look at the nebula tonight.

hung out with a camp fire till 1:15 and caught one feral cat .

but lost another chicken on check this morning it happened after 1:15 when I checked on the chickens for the last time .

had 1 DPs set off one knocked over the other was in very hard ground.

those 2 were on a trail that looks to get used regular

the chicken was head and neck missing , and eaten right through the neck opening all the, the breast , entrails and thighs missing only the skin with most of the feathers on and legs were left

I bet that is making you crazy. Looks like you may have to sit quiet in the dark until it shows or get serious about setting some traps. I would probably try some cages with tuna or sardines maybe canned chicken with a fish oil trail to the cage. If you can set steel then a dirthole with some fish heads. I also have great luck with flat sets set real heavy with fox or coyote gland lure. I catch alot of coons in a 3 stick flat set with red fox gland lure on the sticks. I had such poor luck with dp's i sold mine. That is if its a coon/possum/fox thats the problem. If its an owl then luck and a shotgun. You might could try a predator decoy, the kind that are motorized and flip around.

Im sure you know all this stuff but just thought i would give my 2 cents noone asked for lol.

Also a big coffee can full of shell corn would be a big draw for coons. Where i feed my deer it is nothing but coons all night right now.

I heard tell about a box you can buy at the Walmart what takes pichers when somethin' walks out in front of it. Maybe try one of them.

the farm can set steel some is set.

may be able to borrow one of those image capture boxes , working on that. but since the turkeys move around it would keep taking pictures of them all night of pointed right at their area, the chickens all get in the shelter so watching the yard might work.

The bird in the first picture was eatin by a cat.

I am going to go with a cat on this one. Had a friend with a fenced in pheasant pen that was losing birds every night. He was determined that it was a fox. I went in and found a small hole under the fence that had hairs that definitely were not fox. Wound up being the biggest, meanest feral cat this side of Hades.

Moosetrot

I had that problem and was doing everything I could to keep coons and critters out with a fence and hot wires and I couldn't figure out what was getting through my fortress to the chickens. Then I heard them going crazy in the middle of the night and went out and saw a silent shadow leaving the area, I was protecting them from a ground attack and it was a Great Horned Owl from above. I put a chicken wire top over the pen and the bantams were roosting on top of a dog house I had in the pen and the owl would lay on the chicken wire with his legs hanging through the holes and flap his wings to scare the chickens and make them fly and he would try and grab them with his talons.