I know most people would say momma knows best, but this is one time where i think otherwise. I have a 7 month old cohin bantam who decided to go broody 3 weeks ago and I let her incubate some eggs. I have been trying to decide whether or not to let her raise the babies or to raise them myself. Well, i decided To let her raise them, but prepared a brooder just in case. It was a good thing I did. One chick hatched a day early and i was shocked to find it in the litter of the coop away from the nest box. Luckily it was still alive and as of now he/she is doing very well. Two more hatched this morning and i put them in my brooder with the first chick and everyone is ok. She had eight eggs originally and five have hatched. To my dismay, I found two chicks dead. One was dead from unknown causes, completely hatched but dead, the other dead from an obvious cause: A Corn Snake! A corn snake had crawled under mom and ate a chick out from under her! It was still under her when I found it. Im pretty upset. How could she let this happen? Is it because shes young? And what about the other three? At least one was pipping early. Should i leave them under her? Any info or advice would be helpful. Thank you in advance.
