help missing chick!!!!!- update found chick, dead. think its my fault

it was a cute female bantm that hatched sometime friday-saturday.
well i am back to no chicks hatched. (had one hatch from an impossible clutch) i went and checked on it and the hen and it was gone. there was no sign of it even existing except for the fact there is one egg less so i wasn't imagining things yesterday.

i even picked the hen up and shook it to see if it was hiding under its feathers. nothing. if it had somehow gotten out of the pen the other chickens would of eaten it but there is no sign of chick feathers anywhere.

mom asked me if the momma hen could of ate it.

could a broody hen eat its own chick???

i was so sad i wanted to show john (my bf) it because it was the lucky one that hatched from eggs i considered dead.

i mean people freak out on the boards here if the temp in their brooder drops or spikes for hours. these 8 eggs were wet and cold for 2 days (the broody quit sitting). so i put them under the new broody coshin....

it was so cute and fit in the palm of my hand!!!!

what should i do if others hatch? remove them from the hen and put them in a brooder??

please help. i had named it windy cos it survived getting wet and cold in the windstorm to hatch.... now it seems like it was really unlucky......

 

i have a small dog kennel with chain link fence. and i lined the inside with that wirecloth and there is chicken wire and a tarp over the top. there is only one small hole it could of gotten out 30-40% chance.

there is no sign of chick feathers or bones or blood anywhere.

 

you would think the hen would try to kill the snake. what we have here are garter and bull or black racers. small frog or mice eating snakes. i love the bull snakes cause they eat the rattlers.

i guess it could of been a snake. it would explain the lack of evidence......

and i remember last summer that one of the mexicans that lived there saw a huge snake in my big coop hanging on the roost... not bothering my chickens back then.... they never killed it and they never killed it either... but they will kill mice....

 

i found the chick. 500 feet away from the pen. i guess it got out and either it died of expose or one of the chickens got it and carried it off. its body was intact but its head was a little crushed and the ants were on it. i told it sorry i didn't make the pen secure enough and tossed it in the dumpster.....

i tried to secure it better now and hope more of the impossible eggs hatch....

course now it would be even more impossible because we have a big thunder/wind and rain storm sneak up and there is only a tarp covering the hen sitting on the eggs in a cardboard box.... so yeah,.

when john goes to put the chickens away tonight i will have him check them and see if they are dry....

-sigh- now if there are any more chicks hatched from that pen they will be removed and placed in a brooder. no chances.

the other tractor seems more secure but no hatches yet..............

 

either it happened during yesterday while i was at work and it gout out and one of the chickens got it or something.... but when i watche my chickens catch a mouse they run around chasing the one who has it.... and normally the mouse bodie is never intact.

could ants have started to decompose its head that fast? its head was squished all i saw was the beak but nothing else to let me know the head remained.... at first i thought it was headless.....


case a: so if it was my chickens, why did they not eat it? why only take it that far and leave it?