So my boy let the chickens out of the coop to free-range this morning at 7:15. I went down stairs to "work from home." Went to let the dogs out at 8:30 and saw a dead chicken in the yard. Upon further investigation, missing 10 out of 21 chickens. Found 4 bodies. Two were missing heads. Found other kill locations with just feathers. Rest of the chickens were hiding in the barn and were pretty spooked. I have had a single chicken here or there killed over the last couple of years, but nothing like this. My guess is it was coon. My yard is next to a woods with a small creek. Found three of the dead chickens down in the woods. Given that 6 bodies are missing I suspect a group of coon? Had to be something(s) big enough to haul them off. I let the dogs go and they did not find anything else around. What do you all think? Boys and I are declaring war on the offenders.

My guess would be coon,bobcat,or fisher.

Any other loose dogs in the area?

Could be a fox rearing young.

Hawks are what gets my free range chickens.

Pretty sure its not fisher. We do have bobcats but it was right in the yard not 50 feet from the house. No other dogs around. Thought about the fox but I would not assume they would bite the heads off. I hope it is coon as that will be the easiest for me to resolve. I have had hawks take them before but only ever one at a time. To have something kill 10 in daylight in the edge of the yard with 6 missing......

Hungry neighbors?

Sounds like a sow with cubs to me.

Mink bite the heads off. I lost all 11 in one night. It couldn't drag them off. Don't know if a mink would do that.

That is my guess.

Buddy had a fox do the same thing to him last year. Even killed his mean rooster.

If the dog couldn’t pick up anything, I would think that suggest they were flown off.

My dogs are house dogs. Only thing they can track is me taking out the bacon grease. I was hoping they could find more carnage. Did some walking in the woods tonight. Found a lot of feathers in a lot of different locations. Final count was only 9 with 5 missing. No way it was an aerial attack several kill sites were in thick brush. I suspect I will find out in the morning if it was coon. Boys had fun playing CSI. They think it was a wolf.....or maybe aliens.

So caught a sow that is clearly nursing about 15 feet from the coop. Ironically I caught her just 5 feet outside of the door into my trapping/skinning room. She looked pretty darn thin. We'll see if anything else shows up but I am guessing this was my culprit.

"My dogs are house dogs. Only thing they can track is me taking out the bacon grease". LOL, Sounds just like my dogs abilities.
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Let's hope you caught the culprit.

Keep an eye out, if the cubs were with her they'll be back. I went through this a couple years ago, I killed 4 or 5 "families" in my yard before it stopped. Many of the cubs would come back, climbing on the coop well before dark.

I had something similar happen , but mine turned out to be a grey fox. It happened at the being of season and I set a couple of snares , next day had a grey fox and the chicken killing stopped.

The worse chicken massacre I had was several years ago was , I had 35 chickens that evening , the next moring I had 5 left , a mink came in and killed them. It was during season also , and I caught him also , I chased him into the trap.

I knew it was a dang sow!!!