Sounds like a house cat if not a coon to me.

There are only a handful of predators that will kill a bunch of chickens in one night and leave them where they were killed. Weasels and mink tend to kill a bunch and kill by biting the back of the neck, severing the spine. In doing so, some heads get ripped off. A mink may go one step further and put all the dead birds in a pile.

A lot of chicken folks with no experience in trapping have been able to catch their mink in cage traps. They put one of the dead birds in the back and wire it in.

But as for whodunit, best way to find out is to point a game camera at the likely entry point. Most folks new to chickens are astounded to find out what goes on around the chicken house at night.

I have over a dozen traps in about 150 feet around the end of the coop. couple dirt holes, 4 DPs, 2 cage traps and a bunch of 110 BGs in front of every hole that seemed to be used and blocked off any other spot that I could find. The holes that were dug out were smaller than the 110s. I checked before daylight this morning and had a HEALTHY (fat) cat, in a bringer #2 foothold. Definitely a possibility but I reset just in case this was not the culprit. I don’t really know if a cat would dig to get under the coop

Yes cats will dig.I bet you caught your culprit. It doesn't take much of a hole for a cat to fit in..A cat could differently get in that sized hole you mentioned.

Mink. Dry cat food for bait in a live trap. Lost 5 or 6 pullets this summer before I finally figured it out. I was blaming an owl.

This right here.

Well I ain’t don’t yet, had two traps messed with this morning. Had a foothold flipped out, what ever it was didn’t mess with the hole (grass ball was still in the hole). And a small cage trap rolled over, upside down.

Could be a dozen different things, but last nights problems points to coon. I’ve had more than one instance of coons getting in the coop and killing everything they could, but only eating a couple. They eventually learned to just eat the eggs out of them before I killed them all.

A chicken coop has to be tight, everything loves chicken.

Checked a game camera today and this is what showed up......



Location is only 50 yards from the chicken house, but it's tight and nothing getting in, which in my view is the secret to keeping chickens alive.

Kinda neat to find out we got these. Suspected it, never seen one till now.

With the new activity going on at the trap site, likely more than one varmint. Game cameras really do tell the tale.