The first thing I do when I get home is check my chicks. I have three brooders. 2 - 44 gallon rubbermaid tubs and 1- 35 gallon tub. I check water, food and stir the bedding. So I check my smaller tub quickly when I come in....it's in the laundry room by itself......ok, good water and food. Go into the den and check the two big brooders, first one ok, second one needs water......and wait!.....how many chicks are in there..... One, two, three.....oh no! Only SEVEN chicks! There should be EIGHT! I looked at my chicken wire lid and realize this morning on my way out, I didn't put it on correctly when I fed and watered and there was a gap on one side. I just KNEW the cat suddenly decided that 4 week old chicks were a good cat snack. So I started looking for feathers. Bathrooms? No feathers. Living room? No feathers. Bedrooms? No feathers. Kitchen? No feathers......I've never seen my cats kill a bird with leaving feathers EVERY where. So I start looking behind furniture, under stuff, in corners and still no missing chick. So I go back and count again. No, still only seven in that tub (Arucanas, man they look like hawks) 8 cochins in the other big tub and.....wait, why are there SEVEN chicks in the small brooder????? In the laundry room, not the den. So I count again.....2 silkies, one polish, one RIR, two....no, three! Arucanas! Yippe! I found her. But how did she get out of her brooder and into another room and into the small brooder? Yes there is small gap in the lid of the small brooder, but how would she have found it? Hmmmmm......... She got put back into her big tub and the lid was secured down well. :|
Wow your heart must have been thumping! I am glad you found her. Watch out, mischievous chicks become mischievous hens!
i had kind of the same esperience i had three chicks in a box in the basement with a heat lamp on them and i go down one day and ones missing well my basement is scary is dark and dingy and partly dark with some tunnels in it. so im searching and searching and couldn't find it was searching for and hour and half and was even talking and they would chirp to me but nothing so then we had to go to a family party and i go back down to get a drink reach my hand into the box and felt something that wasn't a soda well i screamed and dropped the box because i thought it was a snake which is unfortunatly common in my basement in the summer i peek in to the box and it was a chick i was so happy that i named her ginger for ginger ale
My husband came home one day to find two JG's escaped from their brooder. According to the poop trail, they wandered the kitchen, explored the laundry room, went down the hallway, visited outside the Silkie brooder in the spare bathroom, went into the livingroom and sat on the couch.