Monday we got our final batch of broiler chicks for 2012. We unpacked 51 apparently healthy birds from the shipping crate and tucked them in their new quarters, chicken coop 6.0, which was to be their home for the next seven weeks. Monday afternoon I found two of the chicks lying motionless and generally not doing well. I tried to give them some water and put them closer to the heat lamp, but they did not make it. A third chick somehow was pushed out under the cardboard draft shield and appeared to have suffocated in the process. A fourth bird died Monday night. So apparently they were a little stressed during shipping; we typically find that shows up in the first 24 hours after new chicks arrive. Not a great way to start the batch, but sometimes it happens.
At lunch time on Tuesday I made my usual mid-day check. The temperature in the coop was where it should be and the chicks were happily skittering around their sawdust circle.
Last night after getting the mail and checking on the lambs, I noticed some white fluff in the driveway. I assumed it was dandelion seed heads. But then I saw more of it just outside the chicken coop. Again, I hoped it was dandelions, it blew out of my fingers like seeds. Just a few seconds later I knew I had been kidding myself...there were nowhere near 47 chicks inside the coop. I did a quick count and came up with 17...
17!
17?
What happened to the other 30 chicks? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect the curious chicks got themselves out underneath the draft guard and slipped outside of the coop into the yard. There they were easy pickings for the murder of crows that was hanging around here yesterday afternoon. The crows had been snatching up Japanese beetles as they hatched up out of the ground. Bugs are apparently not as satisfying as a tiny chicken. Can't say that I really could argue with that, but 30 chicks...gone...in one afternoon.
I shored up the tiny openings at the bottom of the coop and tucked the remaining chicks in for the night. So far, so good today. No chicks have escaped and there were still 17 at last check. I've been keeping an extra eye out for crows.
No chicken for you.
Disaster.
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| The Survivors |
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