She was found in the garden, under a large fir tree with no head and a large amount of damage to her back. We have no idea what got her, but options are:
Fox: unlikely, as other four chickens were fine;
Buzzard: possible, but murder took place under trees and body left behind;
Cat: unlikely, although they could have eaten bits after the kill;
Dog: More probable, but no idea how it got into the garden.
Reason for thinking dog is that
a) we back onto a nature reserve/footpath along the old Great Central and dogs are all over the place down there. No obvious sign of ingress but possible.
b) two large piles of poo near the dead chicken, which upon forensic examination (ie poking with a stick), contained bits of carrot. My neighbour Squirrel, who is well up on animal poo, says it's not fox, badger, cat or bird poo and looks like semi digested dog food.
The other birds are fine, although a bit shaken, but next door's kitten Coco was missing and later found up a tree beside the corpse, frightened half out of her wits, so we think she witnessed the event. Coco however, is not telling...
Garden now full of white feathers, any suggestions on getting rid of these as they are getting into the ponds? They're mainly on gravel so sweeping isn't an option.
Oh well, let's hope whatever it was doesn't come back and I'll get some photos of the other sex change lad(y)
and the good news is that it wasn't one of my three laying birds!
