Is it possible she's gone broody and is hiding on a nest? They can find the smallest little places to start a nest. If she turns up at feeding time tomorrow follow her. If she's in a safe place leave her for a week or so and then move her at night to a place you'll know she'll be able to hatch her babes..

I looked everywhere today and could find no nest.

But I really didn't think that she had gone broody, as she had just come out of the coop where she had been laying, when I last saw her. She was separated from the flock by about 300 or 400 ft. at that point, but she was headed in their direction.

I'll definitely keep my eye out, but I conducted a pretty thorough search today and no broody hens in sight. :-(

I once lived in a house that had a chicken coop with a 7 foot chain link fence around it. The fence was covered with wild grapevine. Well, one day I came out to close up the hens at night and couldn't find one. I called and called, looked all over, no hen. Finally I had to close the others up, sadly deciding she'd met a bad fate. The next morning when I went to the coop I discovered her sitting in the vines on top of that fence. She was well hidden and safe, but I had to get a ladder to get her down. I'm sure once she got hungry enough she would have jumped, but it seemed kind of far.

Just a couple of weeks ago my black Australorp, Eartha Chick, went missing. You can read about that at my link.

If you have trees around your property, look up instead of down -- she may be roosting someplace above your head!

Good luck.

--Johanna

Here is a link that might be useful: Eartha Chick Goes Missing

I hope you find her but it's not out of the realm of possibility for a coyote to come very close to your house and snatch a chicken. Also, a large overhead predator could easily snag a hen the size of a Buff.

Coyotes come up to the house and take dogs right off their porches around here!

Good luck, I really do hope you find her

We lost one to a hawk last week. We had a hard time finding her as she was only partly there, mostly just feathers left on the ground and part of the body. She was hard to see.

I thought I had lost three this winter when they discovered an open door on the shed as it was getting dark and decided they wanted to roost in there instead of going home. They were hidden under some cardboard, roosting together on top of a box. If they had not chirped at us in response to a call, we would not have found them.

We once had one completely dissappear into a crack in the outside wall that we never thought they could fit into. She was stuck in there and needed out help to get out, but she went in anyway.

Don't give up hope until you find part of a body or pile of feathers.

I hope you find her. A couple of years agok, a coyote loped past the cyclone fence that separates our yard and the pasture. The fence is only about 50 feet from the house.

It was broad daylight and it didn't seem to bother it at all that I was in the yard watching it goe thru the pasture.

Here is a link that might be useful: MY BLOG

It could have been a fox or coyote. I know a foxes can be very fast and deadly and leave no traces.

Hopefully she's hiding from you. I say that because it is kind of strange that the dog did not get all riled up.

I really do hope you find her!

I hope you find her too. If it gives you some hope, when my young dog went chicken crazy last month and killed 8 of my girls, I could not find my two buffs anywhere. They weren't amoung the bodies nor with the survivors. I looked everywhere. The next morning they both were casually scratching around the coop like nothing happened. Buffs seem fairly resourceful to me. I call my two the "nosy sisters" because they remind me of two old spinster sisters who will talk your leg off and gossip, LOL. I sure hope you find her, let us know. Lori