Loss of babies

[Lisa Mangiafico]

Hello all,

I just lost my four baby chicks. They were about 3-4 weeks old have been staying in the run with the Mom while other three hens go in the coop at night. We have a coop and run that we thought was safe. Two nights ago some small animal dug under the run door and ate all four chicks....Feathers every where. One head and entrails left outside run. We are devastated. We have spikes under the run and under the doors but the animal managed to sqeeze in between the spikes and eat chicks. Assume we have a weasel? not sure; we set a trap and caught a skunk. Not sure what to do about under the doors of the run there is that little gap between doors and ground - ugh. Also, the four hens (including Mom) are scared it seems. My question is what will Mom do now?

 

[User395221]

Oh, I'm so sorry, how upsetting for you

(I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to improve the security. Hopefully somebody will have some good suggestions for you to prevent this happening again).

 

[azygous]

I feel your heartache. Losing chicks or even adults to a predator is heart wrenching.

I have a similar situation with the door to my run. I was trying to solve the problem with the crack at the bottom being vulnerable. The inside is sand and the outside is clay. I needed to do something that would allow me to both open the door and not trip over whatever I put there to block the crack.

What I did was both fun and easy. Get yourself a sixty pound sack of redi-mix concrete and some scraps of cardboard from a packing box.

Dig down about six inches just inside the door for a "footing". Make a narrow trench about two inches wide and as long as the door is wide.

Mix the concrete to a consistency where it will not puddle, sort of like biscuit dough.

Then carefully build up a sill on the inside of the door so it blocks the crack but isn't so high you trip over it. Use the cardboard to prop the cement so it make a flat edge against the door. Leave the cardboard until the concrete gets hard but is still damp then remove.

 

[Mylied]

I'm sorry you lost your chicks. The mom will be fine. She'll go back to laying and start over again.

 

[BonDEEroo]

That is dreadful. I've seen that kind of thing left by our son's dog who got a taste for chicken and all sorts of wild birds too. In the end the dog went; the chickens stayed. We make sure every night without fail that all the birds are shut in the concrete-floored coop at or soon after dark. The rooster helps by warning us of daytime predators