We Lost 5 Chicks Overnight

Argh!  I'm so mad! 

I've always tried to share on this blog both the good and the bad of our life here at Pure Water Hollow Homestead, even though I naturally tend to lean more toward the positive aspects.  But more often, things do not go as perfectly as planned around here.  I'm sure this is due to the fact that we are not perfect.  We just go day by day and try to do the best we can with the limited skills and knowledge we possess, making plenty of mistakes.

Yesterday evening I moved the nest box/cage where our first hen hatched out those 11 chicks.  She is still using it as the place to take her chicks in for night, and then she waits patiently for me to open it up each morning to allow her to free range with her chicks.  I guess I had not cleaned out enough of the hatching mess from 17 days ago, because I noticed that it was starting to smell pretty bad.  I decided that it would be wise to move it over a couple of feet into some fresh ground and make up a nice, clean, new nest of hay for them.  The mama seemed to be happy with the new arrangement and took all 11 of her chicks into the newly remodeled, clean nest.  I closed them up, like usual, to keep them "safe".

This morning I opened it up just like all the other mornings to let the mama and the chicks out.  To my horror, there were only 6 chicks instead of 11!  I saw all 11 go in last night, but only 6 are there this morning!  After examining the box closer I saw the problem.  These box/cages I am using for most the setting hens are old boxes that we built in 2006 and the wood is getting rotten around the bottoms in places.  They are really over-due to be replaced, but it never seems like we have the time around here to get so many other things done that I deem more important.  So, I've been making do with what we've got.  I place bricks, cement blocks, or logs around the bases of the cages in places that seem weak.  This particular cage was pretty firm and well settled into the ground before I moved it yesterday evening.  But after moving it, I guess the bottom of the box was up a bit off the ground in places.  I didn't notice a problem last night, and it doesn't look like there is more than an inch gap anywhere, but I guess it was enough, along with the weakening, thin plywood back, to invite calamity.  I believe something like a raccoon was able to reach under that back wall and pull the chicks out from under the mama, one at a time, and have a feast.  (I have a very disturbing mental image that I can't seem to shake.)  The only evidence that was left was two single, small orange legs that were lying outside the box, right next to the back wall, un-attached to any meat.

Of course the mama hen does not seem bothered by the tragedy at all, and she was going on with her morning routine like she only had 6 chicks from the start.  I guess that is one of the ways God made us humans to be different from the beasts of the field and fowl of the air. 

But it still infuriates me that this mama hen could have done her job so well, and keep her 11 chicks alive and healthy for 17 days, safe from the hawks and crows and foxes and dogs and cats and whatever else likes to eat baby chicks, only to be let down by her trust in me, that I could provide a safe place for her family to sleep.  And it worries me that this creature of the night will return, and I don't know if any of my box/cages will be able to keep a determined coon from getting a meal.  Buffy is in a similar old box at night.  Her chicks are now 6 days old and she, too, has been able to keep all 12 chicks safe so far.  (I still need to take a picture of them.)  And I have the white hen in another old box/cage that is due to hatch a clutch out in about 4 more days, and a black hen on a nest that should hatch the end of June.  (We're using an old hamper for the black hen since all the box/cages are taken.)  Coons and other critters like to eat eggs, too, if they get the chance.  I don't know if I can really keep any of the chicks, mamas, or eggs safe enough if the dogs fail in their nightly patrols.  (It was raining last night, so I don't think the dogs were paying as good of attention as they often do.)

By the way, we just pulled two more setting hens from the coop into private nests last night.  Since I don't have any more of those old box/cages, I made up the nests in old, cracked 5 gallon buckets.  We put one bucket with the hen and 15 new eggs in a small cage.  The other hen had been setting longer, so we put 7 partially incubated eggs that she had been setting on in the bucket and put the newly conformed bucket-nest into a little-used dog house.  The dog house is in no way secure from predators, but I hope it will be safe being closer to the house where the dogs most often stay.  We'll see, I guess.

I am pleased that we are having so many hens go broody this year.  We don't want chickens that have had the mothering instinct bred out of them, even if they do lay more eggs.  I want to be able to continually raise our own flocks through the years, without having to depend on ordering chicks through the hatcheries.  And since we tend to go through periods with high chicken mortality rates around here, I don't think we can hatch too many chicks.  Plus the more chickens that survive to maturity, the more meat that will be available for the family.

But for there to be future meat and eggs, I must keep the chickens protected!  That is always a challenge in this sin-cursed world that we live in, (along with the thorns and thistles).  I'm sure that God allows chickens to hatch so many offspring at one time because many of them would not survive in the wild, but my chickens are not in the wild!  I do not want to lose any of them!  Even though some losses seem inevitable, I know that I can do things better in our chicken raising operation.  Today is a rainy day, but I still plan to locate and set up our old live traps around the nest boxes, as well as see what I can do to make the box/cages more secure.

Sitting here on this gloomy morning, thinking about smelly nest boxes and dismembered legs from precious little chicks whose lives were snuffed out in the night, reminds me that homestead life is not always the picturesque scene of beauty and tranquility that is often portrayed.