Chicken predator?

Tonight we have 2 missing chickens (no sign whatsoever of them) and 1 chicken whose head is almost off (think Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter).

The only feathers we found belong to the nearly decapitated chicken I am guessing but one of the missing chickens is also black so hard to say for sure. Definitely no feathers from the Americauna that is missing. There is a blood pool next to the dead chicken and one in the snow maybe 3 feet away. No blood spots in between.

The ONLY predators we have ever seen in the past 2 years are coyotes but they take the whole chicken and leave a few feathers. No blood or dead chicken like we have tonight.

The neighbor's have a blue heeler that has previously chased my chickens, never caught one. She WAS on my property tonight but the neighbors claim they saw her escape, followed her here and took her back home. All I know is I came outside, had their freakin muddy dog jump all over me and they were already halfway down my driveway in their car to get her. 30mins later hysterical child calls as she went to feed her chickens and 2 are missing and one is dead.

Any guesses as to what the predator was? I have a picture of the dead one but it's really gross so not sure anyone wants to see it.

Heeler got lucky. :(
Posted via Mobile Device

I strongly suspect the heeler. I trust the neighbours are aware of the killings?

Well if the healer went after them before then maybe he did again. But someone would know it. It had to take them somewhere. Three and two gone, sounds like something else. We have coyotes here but the thing that gets the chickens are the skunks. None this year thank goodness but summer is coming!

I am waiting until tomorrow morning to see if the 2 missing ones return. If they are hiding somewhere I cannot find them, I think it was the Heeler, otherwise I don't think so as I would have 3 corpses. I don't think it's at all feasible for her to hide them anywhere, it's a completely barren, treeless property in winter. Both mine and theirs.

We've had hawks go after our chickens before.

Well keep us posted. I am always interested in what can get a chicken. I have had some get killed and never figured it out. And another time my husband shot a skunk with his 357, bah ha ha ha! In the coop! Wonder how long it took the chickens to be able to hear again, lol.

Oh I bet your chickens smelled amazing after that! Lol
Posted via Mobile Device

Mt first thought was a raccoon, but the dog seems more choice as it seems it got after them, without the intention of killing, killed, tasted blood, and wanted more.
Posted via Mobile Device

Ya know...?... I didn't think it was all that bad. My husband said the smell about made him wanna throw up. Maybe it was because I was sooooooooooooo over that skunk it was the smell of sweet victory!!!! LOL. Big coop so that was good. Thing about it was, we put up a hot wire low almost to the ground and it was working until one of the ranch workers turned it off for some reason to do something and well, damn thing got in. I was not happy!