How to Tell What Killed My Chicken

Protect your homestead chickens by knowing what predators could be coming after them — and what you can do to stop them.

By Gail Damerow
Published on February 19, 2018
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by Adobestock/Carol Hamilton

 Identifying unique signs of different kinds of chicken predators is the first step for how to tell what killed my chicken.

“What are you building there, a bunker?” My visiting uncle was referring to the concrete foundation of an under-construction chicken house on our new farm. Looking at it through his eyes, maybe it was overkill. On the other hand, a neighbor had told us, “Chickens don’t live long out here,” and nothing we could do would stop predation.

Well, as long as we kept our flock in that bunker, we never lost a chicken, except for two that disappeared one day when we let them out to forage and they wandered into the woods to scratch in the dry leaves. That first (and last) time we allowed the chickens to roam from their bunkered yard, two hens fell victim to a pair of foxes with hungry kits.

Later we moved the hen house to one end of our barn, some distance from the house, and soon learned that our chicken bunker had lulled us into complacency about the local predator population. Plenty of critters out there enjoy dining on home-grown poultry as much as we do. If you live in a more urban setting, see this overview of identifying predators of urban chickens.

Look for Tracks

The first step in deterring a predator is to identify it. Each critter leaves its own calling card that lets you know which animal you’re dealing with. Having raised chickens for some 40 years, I’ve seen quite a few of these signs, but every now and then I get stumped, largely because the predators haven’t read the books and don’t always conform to their own standard operating procedure.

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