Kill Characteristics

Traveling Trapper

New member
Hey all, just had something get in and kill some of my chickens. We have fox, coon and skunk in the area. I don't think it was skunk. It lifted up the wire on the edge of the pen and got it, after doing a little digging. All the chickens that it killed have one leg bitten off cleanly at the hip joint, and no other bite marks. One has its guts pulled out a little where the leg is missing. The wire wasn't torn, just unstapled. No tracks, no scat, no fur. My neighbor is having coons eating his catfood, and there was a fox family out here this winter, and we've seen them this Spring. I want to say coon, what do all think?
 
racoons, or opossum if you have them in the area.

have had both in the past push their way into the chicken barn.

we had a coon one night that we caught between where the wire joined (grandpa had a 2-3' overlap) and he was working his way through it ... so we stuck him with the pitchfork. he wasn't happy about it - hissing and biting at us (and the wire!) - and i had to run into the house for the 22 to finis him off.
 
Hang a snare in the hole and find out. Raccoons love chickens along with foxes also, but I found that the fox tend to take a chicken with them when they leave. I caught quite a few fox around chickens when I lived in the Treasure Valley. Most were caught in the first night.
 
Most of my chicken losses have been possums or coons, chickens usually end up with their heads and guts eaten out though. When a fox got in, there were lots of feathers and multiple dead chickens. Put out a cage trap with sardines or something and most likely you will catch the culprit.
 
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