We lost our almost-year old cockerel named Sergeant Hei Hei today. This was completely preventable and I fully blame myself for not acting quick enough. I decided to let him be out with the flock during free ranging time while I supervised since his legs were still healing. I saw that he was trying to mate with one of the more submissive hens while everyone else was doing their own thing. I went inside the house to grab something that I could eat outside. I heard a bunch of noise and figured he and the hen got into a little fight over him trying to mate her so I ignored it and continued looking for for food until I heard more concerning noise. I rushed out to find 5 hens attacking him at the same time. I quickly got them off him but saw that he wasn't moving. I picked him up to see that his eyes were half closed and he wasn't breathing. I could have prevented this if I had just gone out at the first noise I heard but I didn't and now we lost a good breeding male.
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