Lost chicks

[JacinLarkwell]

I have some trouble understanding the thought process behind free ranging little chicks. They're just tiny little morsels. And it's so sad when they die.

I see it as survival of the fittest with mine. If it's ones I really want from the groups that do free range, I take them and raise them. Plenty of my pheonixes live to add to the flock, and my red coop rarely stray very far that as little day olds they tend do just fine as long as they don't get separated from mama at night (which I find and reunite if they do) and are healthy.

 

[Ridgerunner]

My thought process is that I have a history of tremendous success with hens raising chicks when they free range. Not everybody does.

Any time you free range any chickens of any age and size there is a risk from predators. Some people have horrible luck with that, some have great luck.

 

[Henry&Friends]

I've had a chick pop through regular chicken wire and disappear UNDER MY WATCH. I was right stinking there and never found the chick, I stayed out there past dark but it was gone. I now always keep my chicks enclosed in a run made with small hole chicken wire and with a top. I keep them beside the coop, and usually run the wire through a quarter of the coop door and they have an enclosed section in the coop.

I've actually just changed my coop and built an enclosed run for my chickens, so I don't think this will work for me anymore. But it hopefully will work for you. You can keep momma hen inside the chick run with them, if she's otherwise being a good mother.

 

[McChooky]

After my new batch of chicks start laying in the spring my 2 yr old's will have reached their peak & be retired.The only chickens I free range are retired...

 

[Perris]

Thanks that’s very helpful , we’ll probably end up building a outside run at some point. We had another attempt yesterday on the last older chick. Pretty scary and he almost got away with him. Some of the females and one of our Roos helped out and fought it off. I’m sure it’s the same one that got the two babies too.

we had the same problem in years past, with chicks that wander away from the broody and into the open (especially if they were light solid colour rather than chipmunk) taken by aerial predators. But the broodies and the flock learn from experience, and in 2022 we didn't lose a single chick, out of 12 in 3 clutches, to predation.

 

[raingarden]

Our dozen-or-so free range hens each hatch two clutches of chicks per year. The season has already started. But, out of hundreds of chicks that hatch only a couple will make it to adulthood. The rest die from childhood diseases or are driven away by the hens when they become juveniles.

 

[Sussex19]

I have had a lot of success so far letting my hens raise their chicks, and they do mostly free range.
Something like 80 chicks so far, and only lost two; they just disappeared, although I suspect a bird of prey took them.
Having said that, there is a lot less predators that like chicken here, compared to some places. I guess it just comes down to luck, really.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

Our dozen-or-so free range hens each hatch two clutches of chicks per year. The season has already started. But, out of hundreds of chicks that hatch only a couple will make it to adulthood. The rest die from childhood diseases or are driven away by the hens when they become juveniles.

So sorry! Those are really terrible odds. Do you have a secure grow out coop and run you can arrange to lessen losses?

 

[SourRoses]

Having said that, there is a lot less predators that like chicken here, compared to some places.

But, drop bears...

 

[raingarden]

So sorry! Those are really terrible odds. Do you have a secure grow out coop and run you can arrange to lessen losses?

They are a quasi-feral flock that has lived here for fifty years that we know of; maybe it's been hundreds of years. We supplement their free-range diet with some corn because we like having them around. We cannot stop them from breeding but if more chicks survived there would soon be more chickens than the natural forage base and our pocketbook could support. They manage their own flock size by driving away excess juveniles. It seems like such a waste. Every hen does her best to raise and wean her chicks but it's usually all for naught. I guess that's just Natures way; survival of the fittest and stuff like that. But, when you step back and look at it, their system works very well as evidenced by the flocks long term survival and genetic stability.