My hens let our chicks die!

[Syd Johnson]

What is happening?! We had two Chanteclers and a Golden Laced Cochin that have been setting on a total of 7 eggs laid from them, 2 Ameriucanas, a white laced cochin, and a Barnvelder.... The Golden Laced hatched and protected 1 chick, the 2 Chanteclers appear to have just let the other 5 hatched chicks die! They hatched yesterday and I am still waiting for another one under Goldie to hatch. If it doesn't this afternoon I'll remove it. What happened?! Did they not want them because they may have not been their chick?! I'm totally heartbroken. Should I worry that they will try and kill the live chick? They didn't appear to peck them, just didn't keep them warm or smashed them... We also have the Roo in the same coop, will he try and hurt the chick? Should I move mama and babe to their own space? Please help!!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, I’d move them to a safe place.

I’ve never had a rooster threaten a chick, but that doesn’t mean a lot. They are living animals. Anything can happen.

Some people have multiple broodies hatch together and they do a good job of working together to raise the chicks. But sometimes for whatever reasons they don’t work well together and chicks die. With living animals you really can’t tell what will happen.

I’ve also had a hen hatch 8 chicks, kill three and raise the rest just fine. Why that happened I don’t have a clue.

I really like a broody to raise the chicks with the flock, but in your case it sounds like separating them for a while at least would be a good idea. I don’t know what really happened but it sounds like a reasonable precaution.

 

[enola]

If a hen hatches out a brood of chicks and it appears that she killed one of them, keep in mind that one of them may not have been healthy. Nature has it's way of weeding out unhealthy animals.....

Many animals will kill unhealthy newborns.