Can a rooster hurt a hen causing neck bleeding and death? Or was it a predator at daytime?

Zsuzzzs

Chirping
Dec 2, 2024
15
56
56
Hi all!
Unfortunately I found one of my leghorn hens dead today, I'm pretty devastated. Her neck was quite bloody, I thought she might have been hiding outside for night and got another marten attack (They have 2500 sqft to run only with fences, but without anything on top, and a closed coop). I have a camera watching the nesting boxes, and I can rewatch 2 days, so tonight I tried to see if she was alive on monday, or not. Turns out she was absolutely fine monday morning and had a neck full of blood by 12:40 pm, but still walking "fine" Until 14:00, then nothing more, and I found here today afternoon dead. I've seen 2 blood-drops in the coop on an egg, and tried to find who is it from, but a storm came and I had to go back to the house, and next time it was dark when I went. Quite obviously I'm now thinking I should have been there until I find who is injured, but it wasn't that much blood I've found I hoped it was something minor. I have no idea what happened in reality. No dogs at the neighbours, haven't seen or heard a fox nearby ever for 7 years since I moved here, also it is in the centre of a small town of 15 thousand people in Hungary, so not the middle of nowhere.
We have 2 rumpless araucana roosters since November, one dominant and an absolute omega. There has only been aggression between them, but never with the ladies before. This hen was usually with the omega one, she was quite shy as well. Is it possible that one of the roosters hurt her like this? If so, should I get rid of them?
Thanks for any advice or experience.
 

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At this point there's not any evidence that the roosters had anything to do with it. Can you post pictures of the hen's wounds? Without seeing the wound itself it will be hard to say what happened

That said, it's possible she got hurt somehow and the other birds pecked at the wound. That's why it's very important to separate injured birds from the flock. Without seeing what happened though there's no telling who did it if that is what happened. Nothing to do in that situation except keep an eye on everyone
 
I'm really not good with dead animals, especially if they belong to me. A friend helped me out getting her out of the run, and because we had marten attacks before I was pretty sure it was the same, didn't give a 2nd look.
I've seen no pecking, I've seen her with other hens on the camera, they didn't hurt her fortunately, also there didn't seem to be feathers missing.
I was just wondering, that only last week I saw a hawk up in the sky, and it was new, have never seen them before above the city, just a couple of kms away above the fields. A bird's (possibly dove) remains was in one of my neighbours property only 100m away the same day. Can a hawk come to a city full of cats and dogs to hunt for chickens? That would make some sense, even though we have fruit trees above the run, it's not fully covered, and there's no leaves yet.
 
Ok, so my husband tried to find the injury, and to both of our surprise, there seem to be no injuries, neither on the neck, nor on the head. What on earth can it be?
 

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