Chicken on the menu

It was warm, windy and wet last night and by the morning most of the snow at Quelebu had gone. After restocking with wood I let the chickens out as they had been in the run for the last 4 days because of the snow. When I went to put them away this afternoon there was no sign of them. I found the little brown hen hiding in the straw in the barn and obviously traumatised. Later I found the cockerell in much the same state. I put them both in henhouse and searched high and low for the other three chickens without success. Then I found one of them in the field, she'd been attacked and killed though only a small amount of one breast had been eaten and she'd been slightly disembowled. Whatever killed it had strong enough teeth or beak to bite through its ribs. At dusk thankfully the other two hens returned.

I doubt it was a fox or the carcass would have been taken and eaten, a martin or stout would have gone for the throat and she'd been grabbed by the rear. The most likely candidates are a dog (which instinctively chased and killed the hen but then didn't really know how to get the feathers off and eat it) or perhaps a bird of prey which was unable to carry the hen off because it was too heavy. As the most the carcass is intact it's tea tonight, Amazingly the hen had three or four fully formed yolks inside her and dozens of smaller developing yolks - a genuine egg production line.