Thank you so much! I'm now thinking my girl has sour crop and fowl pox, poor dear. I've got her in a pen alone on a special diet to hopefully help her crop work itself out (scrambled eggs, yogurt, and olive oil, plus added raw apple cider vinegar to her water). I guess I'll just keep an eye...
My RI Red hen has small black clumps on her comb and she smells strange. Kind of sour. Thought it might be dirt on her comb, but it didn't come off easily. Scabs maybe? I haven't seen her pecked at all, and she's eating and running around and laying just fine. Nothing unusual about her crop that...
Oh my word! I think I'm traumatized by your story! I'm so sorry. :-( Thanks for all the info on the predators, though. There's quite a learning curve here.
Thank you! Yes, I am an incredibly non-violent person, yet I'm finding myself thinking about how I'd smash the hawk with a rock if I saw it after my sweet hens.
Thank you so much for your thoughts (and sympathies ... we sure do get attached to this sweet little birds, don't we!) I hadn't even thought of winter bringing on more predator problems. I'm pretty set on letting my girls free range as much as possible ... so is this just something I'm going...
All my hens were fine this morning when let them out of the coop to free range (8am), then I found a pile of feathers and quite a bit of the carcass of my sweet Barred Rock pullet under the trees early this afternoon. Any ideas what would do this in broad daylight? My yard is completely...