I've got a small flock of chickens, before today I had 9 full sized hens (Road Islands, ISA Browns, Buff, and Barred Rock about covers them), and then I had 9 Mille Fleur Bantams.
The bantams are 2 groups: 3 are ones I've had for a while and 6 are their babies. 3 of them are roosters, 3 of them are hens.
On Sunday when the chickens were out roaming the yard my kids found one with a pretty good open head wound on the back side of his head, skull exposed. I cleaned it up, and my mom (veterinarian) sewed him up. He appears to be doing fine. I chalked this up to a rooster right since the 3 young boys are starting to show dominance.
Then yesterday I noticed I was suddenly missing another of the young bantam roosters. I thought maybe he got out, even though that would be very difficult. There were a lot of feathers in the coop but they were mostly from the normal chickens so I thought maybe they had a tiff. So last night I locked the chickens in their coop. My wife let them out into the run this morning.
Today I go home for lunch and find that of the 9 Mille Fleur Bantams I have, 3 of them are alive (1 original rooster, and 2 young hens), 1 of them is badly injured and scared to death, 2 are dead, and 1 is completely gone. One of the dead ones is completely missing it's head. (one was already missing, and the other is currently in rehab for a head wound).
In addition one of my ISA brown hens had some very bad trauma to it's face where it was basically split wide open, part of the top of its beak was missing, it was bad, so I had to put her down.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO my initial thought before today was we had some rooster fights and a missing rooster, but now with all this carnage I'm thinking something must be getting into the coop. So what would get into the coop, kill a bunch of chickens, remove the head from one, and take a complete one? The only way anything could get in is through the roof ventilation which I'm going to close up tonight, but what ever it is has to be small, like a mink or similar.
thoughts?
The bantams are 2 groups: 3 are ones I've had for a while and 6 are their babies. 3 of them are roosters, 3 of them are hens.
On Sunday when the chickens were out roaming the yard my kids found one with a pretty good open head wound on the back side of his head, skull exposed. I cleaned it up, and my mom (veterinarian) sewed him up. He appears to be doing fine. I chalked this up to a rooster right since the 3 young boys are starting to show dominance.
Then yesterday I noticed I was suddenly missing another of the young bantam roosters. I thought maybe he got out, even though that would be very difficult. There were a lot of feathers in the coop but they were mostly from the normal chickens so I thought maybe they had a tiff. So last night I locked the chickens in their coop. My wife let them out into the run this morning.
Today I go home for lunch and find that of the 9 Mille Fleur Bantams I have, 3 of them are alive (1 original rooster, and 2 young hens), 1 of them is badly injured and scared to death, 2 are dead, and 1 is completely gone. One of the dead ones is completely missing it's head. (one was already missing, and the other is currently in rehab for a head wound).
In addition one of my ISA brown hens had some very bad trauma to it's face where it was basically split wide open, part of the top of its beak was missing, it was bad, so I had to put her down.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO my initial thought before today was we had some rooster fights and a missing rooster, but now with all this carnage I'm thinking something must be getting into the coop. So what would get into the coop, kill a bunch of chickens, remove the head from one, and take a complete one? The only way anything could get in is through the roof ventilation which I'm going to close up tonight, but what ever it is has to be small, like a mink or similar.
thoughts?