@CCsGarden and
@notabitail I'm very sorry for In Albis. I will miss all her tricks to get in to grab some food. Are all your other chooks ok, no one showing similar symptoms?
@LhickenChicken I'm sorry about Aurora as well. It's hard when the only thing you can do is give them a quicker painless ending.
I don't have much useful advice because I was in the same situation with Léa and I gave up breaking her this way. I do use the crate for a few hours in the morning and two hours before roosting , but the rest of the day I just lock them out of the coop.
If it helps I did notice that she sort of got used to it after a few days.
On crated broodies, I have a mystery myself that needs at least Sherlock Aurora to look into. I have a new broody, Lulu, who like Calypso is extremely aggressive. I put her in the crate in the evening, because she aims for the same nest as Merle, who is the devil itself, and she tries to poke Lulu's eyes out.
Anyway yesterday I left her in this crate locked up. An hour and a half later I heard a big commotion. I ran to the coop. Lulu was on top of the crate. Water and food were spilled.
But the crate was still locked.
I don't understand how she got out.
The top bars, not shown on the picture, are slightly wider, three inches square. But even if she could possibly have forced squeezed her way through how would she get to the top ?
Very strange.
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