After hearing some stories about hens accepting other chicks, I stupidly agreed to let my husband try introducing one of our new chicks [got 5 little EE girls, about 4 days old today], after he promised to get the chick out if anything went bad.
Our acting momma is caring for an 11 day old chick that she co-hatched and has been a great mom to so far. I told him people suggest doing it at night, but he wanted to try and I caved. Dumb, dumb, dumb!!!! She got at the baby and either she threw it out of the crate, or he dropped it trying to get it out, and it fell about 2 ft. in in addition to her strike. Poor little thing was torn open under it's wing, and I could hear its lung crackling when it peeped. We had to euthanize it.
I should have known better, and I'm so mad at myself for not standing firm with my gut. We picked the chick we felt would cause us the least upset if something did go wrong, but that didn't work either - my little girl was terribly upset and he was mad at himself, and I am mad at myself. What a crappy ending to the picking up new chicks adventure; the horrible traffic I got caught in on the way there that turned out to be due to a fatal accident should have been seen as an omen but I wasn't paying attention. Okay, I know that's just silly, but I'm so bummed.
This is the damage we discovered under the wing area - could the fall have done this or is this all hen strike?
Our acting momma is caring for an 11 day old chick that she co-hatched and has been a great mom to so far. I told him people suggest doing it at night, but he wanted to try and I caved. Dumb, dumb, dumb!!!! She got at the baby and either she threw it out of the crate, or he dropped it trying to get it out, and it fell about 2 ft. in in addition to her strike. Poor little thing was torn open under it's wing, and I could hear its lung crackling when it peeped. We had to euthanize it.
I should have known better, and I'm so mad at myself for not standing firm with my gut. We picked the chick we felt would cause us the least upset if something did go wrong, but that didn't work either - my little girl was terribly upset and he was mad at himself, and I am mad at myself. What a crappy ending to the picking up new chicks adventure; the horrible traffic I got caught in on the way there that turned out to be due to a fatal accident should have been seen as an omen but I wasn't paying attention. Okay, I know that's just silly, but I'm so bummed.
This is the damage we discovered under the wing area - could the fall have done this or is this all hen strike?
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