Did my chickens peck each other to death?

[Kvandescheur]

I was gone to work today and somehow a couple of my new 5 month old silkies got out of the run they were in.

My husband came home at 2pm and couldn’t find them. I came home and we ended up finding them decapitated in hidden places in the run (one was behind the feed bucket in the run, one was just outside the run in between a tarp and a slat).

I also have 6 other older hens that free range separately.

Could this have been my adult chickens pecking them to death? And then eating their heads?

It must have been in the daytime, and one ended up back in the run but dead. Is it possible it died from being pecked and then the other 5 month old chickens ate its head? The adult chickens aren’t able to get into this enclosure so I am very confused what happened.

 

[Seaslug]

I don't know if your chickens could have done this... I can tell you that when I lost multiple chickens in a similar fashion -- heads removed or neck bitten and the body stashed in various covert places -- the culprit was either a mink or a weasel. It came back the next evening and we could not determine for sure which it was. So if it was a mammal, you may want to remove everyone from that coop in case the perpetrator comes back. Mink and weasels, like rats, can get through gaps the size of a quarter. We simply moved the surviving chickens for about a month and made sure that the coop was covered in 1/2" hardware cloth -- we never had another issue with the mink.

 

[Kvandescheur]

I don't know if your chickens could have done this... I can tell you that when I lost multiple chickens in a similar fashion -- heads removed or neck bitten and the body stashed in various covert places -- the culprit was either a mink or a weasel. It came back the next evening and we could not determine for sure which it was. So if it was a mammal, you may want to remove everyone from that coop in case the perpetrator comes back. Mink and weasels, like rats, can get through gaps the size of a quarter. We simply moved the surviving chickens for about a month and made sure that the coop was covered in 1/2" hardware cloth -- we never had another issue with the mink.

Okay good to know…thank you!

 

[Kvandescheur]

I don't know if your chickens could have done this... I can tell you that when I lost multiple chickens in a similar fashion -- heads removed or neck bitten and the body stashed in various covert places -- the culprit was either a mink or a weasel. It came back the next evening and we could not determine for sure which it was. So if it was a mammal, you may want to remove everyone from that coop in case the perpetrator comes back. Mink and weasels, like rats, can get through gaps the size of a quarter. We simply moved the surviving chickens for about a month and made sure that the coop was covered in 1/2" hardware cloth -- we never had another issue with the mink.

Did it come at night or during the day?

 

[McChooky]

I have heard many horror stories of silkies being bullied by other breeds but your older birds are in a different coop so I would rule them out. Your older silkies would also have blood on them if they pecked the heads off of these so I would rule them out as well. Weasels stash the bodies near one another but yours were in 2 different areas.I'm hesitant to say this was a weasel.Coons will rip their heads off if they can reach thru the wire and grab them.Birds of prey are bad to just eat the heads of chickens

 

[BigBlueHen53]

This does not sound like the work of chickens. @Seaslug is probably right, you have a predator. Is the top of your run covered? Owls are notorious for eating only the heads of birds. Can you cover the top of your run with chicken wire or some kind of netting? But you say it happened during the day. Are there any openings a raccoon could have reached through, grabbed a bird and tried to pull it through the fencing? I lost a chicken that way when the raccoon could only get the head of the chicken through the fencing, sorry to be graphic.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

If you only have chicken wire around your run, reinforce it with 1/2" hardware cloth up to about 2' high, and also consider putting an "apron" of the same around the perimeter of the run out to a distance of 18", covered with gravel, to keep predators from digging in.

 

[Seaslug]

The weasel/mink that killed four of our chickens did stash them in different areas. I do not know if that is because it filled its original stash area with dead chicken or by design -- it is not unusual for some predators to section larger prey and stash it in more than one location... and weasel/mink do come out during the day.

I apologize -- I should have started all of this off with telling you that I am very sorry for your loss.