- Sep 29, 2013
- 9
- 0
- 7
We are just getting started on our little farm we want. We started with meat birds after seeing some of the horrible treatments that our store bought chickens go through. We started with 10. The person we got them from said they would go lazy and not go 3 feet for water by 49 days old. We have been free ranging them and had gotten quite the opposite result. Our birds will roam 30 to 40 yards 4 to 5 times a day to let us know they are hungry. They each have their own personality and although they are just meat birds we have become fond of them and enjoy watching them enjoy life. One bird went off balance early on and we isolated it, sadly our dog decided to play with it to death. Now 9. We humanely butchered two on Saturday. Now 7. Woke up this morning and they are all dead. Murdered and scattered around the yard. We also just a couple of weeks ago got six little egg layers which we were also free ranging. I was in the front yard on Friday in the garden for about 15 minutes. When I returned to the back yard I noticed crows over where the little chicks like to forage. I ran, too late. The crows had killed one of the babies. So, this morning when our daughter and her friend came running in waking us up to tell us that the crows had killed all of our "fat chickens" that was what we thought. For five or so devastating minutes we thought crows. We then realized there was one chicken missing. There is also a rather large pile of feces near the crime scene. What would kill them ALL and only take one? And why kill them ALL? Thank you in advance for any info or advice you might have.