Baby chick died, squished flat

[what_the_flock]

One of our hens has a few eggs we gave her, and recently they've been starting to hatch. Today, when we went to check on the chicklets, we found one of them dead.. but it looked like it was squished? Any idea what caused this? Did mama crush it? Anything we should do to prevent this happening again?

 

[AidKD]

It sounds like the mama did it. Has she had chicks before? She didn't do it on purpose, it's just something that happens sometimes. I have a mama who has had several hatches and she still can't seem to be careful about where she steps. There's not really anything you can do to stop it other than just taking the chicks from her.

 

[mcdze]

just check them more often is all i can suggest, and i always do a head count on everybody even the big ones, good practice .. but ive had them squished before. obviously a couple of hours, to the point they were severely disoriented, and they recovered .. left that way several hours more and they would die, so .. if possible just keep an eye on them the first couple days anyway ..