OK,what am I dealing with here in my hen house:

[hedgehog]

We have woods out back, so we're dealing with foxes, racoons, possums, skunks, rats, etc.

Last week I found a hen on the floor missing her head. I also caught whiffs of a bitter smell in the yard around the barn and hen house.

Yesterday, i had a hen that was going down, so I wasn't surprised to find her dead this morning, except that she also was missing her head!

We put up some hardware cloth around some holes in the chicken house after the first incident, but there are still a lot of small gaps.

So - any guess as to what animal I'm dealing with? My guess is a mink or opportunistic rat.

[fasttense]

1. I would say you have a skunk or raccoon stalking your chickens

Raccoon have been known to stick their hands through the wires and grab at chicken's heads. But a friend of mine swears a skunk was pulling off the heads of his chickens. Full grown hens are kind of big for rats and snakes and foxes would try to take the whole bird.

We have coons and skunks too but we keep our 2 large dogs penned fairly closely to the chickens. Most wildlife can't understand that the dogs are in a pen and stay away. Plus we have electric netting around the chicken field.

[Kali]

2. I have had skunks take their heads so I know they will do that.

My worst chicken problems are skunks. Coyotes will come though some years, but I battle skunks all the time. they are weasly and can get in SMALL holes. very cute critters but I have to steel myself and off them when I catch them, tried releasing 10 miles away but I am convinced they returned in a couple of days so I kill them now.

[hedgehog]

3. Killing skunks takes nerve and a strong stomach - at least around here a skunk releases its

scent when it dies. I had a sick skunk in the chicken house some years back, and the county sent someone out to shoot it because there was a high incidence of rabies at the time. We had to air out the chicken house very thoroughly after that!

I had assumed that the animal had killed the first hen, but she was the same age as the other, so it might have been opportunistic. Most of the hens sleep high up on the roost rather than on the floor. I have some younger hens who are sleeping on the floor - i hope they learn to roost pretty soon!

[randr]

4. We use live traps and move them up to higher ground

I recently saw a new model that is made out of PVC piping and does not allow the critter to spray you. Maybe on Amazon.
On edit: I dig a shallow 1 foot wide trench around my hen house and place wire in it and up the side of coop/fencing. Stop critters when they attempt to dig under fence.