Should I buy eggs or wait it out?

I had to bury another chick today. Ratchet had it, but not 100% sure that he is what killed it..... I was pretty sure until I went to lock up and there was another one missing.... No sign of it, but it was dark, and I was having a hard time seeing anything in the rain. I will tomorrow in the daylight. I'm hoping that it is just hiding somewhere.
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The hooligans discovered the roost in their coop today. When I went to let them out, I looked in the window and 3 of them were up there. They didn't sleep there since when I locked up they were all on the ground, but it won't be long now. Only about 10 days until I am supposed to be down to 4. I am going to have to kill my ameracaunas which is kind of a shame because there isn't really enough meat on them and processing them will be pretty much a waste of time and a waste of a nice heritage bird. It will probably take all 3 of them to even get chicken stock.

In other news, I figured out what breed some of my chicks are. The ones that were the same as Lindz from the "red pullet" bin. I had seen pictures of nearly identical chickens that were labeled as RSL's but what was throwing me off was that my chicks couldn't be RSL's because if they were, my boys should have been white...so I assumed they were a cross. Then I read that if you breed a RSL to an RSL, you get second generation RSLs that all look the same whether they're male or female - they lose the ability to be sexed by color. So my chicks are second gen RSLs. Sadly only one of them is female but I look forward to her laying a TON of eggs for me. The other two who are boys have grown pretty quickly and will be the first to be processed.

No eggs today.
 
Lindz, such a bummer about your chickens. I hope it's not the puppy. We had a Rhodesian Ridgeback long ago that was really good with all the animals. We had 2 juvenile ducklings that she was particularly interested in. We were gone one day and my mom had forgotten to put the ducklings up. We weren't too worried because the dog would protect them. Got home, and no ducks. We looked everywhere. Mom asked the dog, where are those ducks?! and she (dog) went straight to the camellia bush and started digging up those poor ducklings. (True story!) Both dead, but no injuries, not a mark on them. We figured the dog ran them to exhaustion. Hopefully they were already dead when she got rid of the evidence.
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My point, that is taking far too long to make, is that the pup (if it is the pup) might be playing with the chickens. Still not a good thought, but better than predatory killing.
 
That is what I thought originally with the first hen he hurt. Now, I'm not sure.... I'm not sure if he is killing them, or if he is finding them after something else has killed them. Either way, he starts eating them.... He has also caught wild rabbits, and eats them as well.... I know he isn't starving, so I'm not sure what is up with him. He may just have an extremely high hunting drive. I'm thinking that he definitely needs a job, and am trying to figure that one out. He may end up going back to my dad's so my dad can work him with the horses.... and dad doesn't have any small animals, so I think he would be ok there.... I'm trying some intensive training with the shock collar first. We'll just have to see what happens.
 
W4W I know people would take the hens, I have people beating down my door for them. They boys not so much. I don't know anything about this lavender business, mine are black, blue, and splash.
 
Brinsea ordered from amazon!
12 frizzled polish hatching eggs ordered from eBay!
Divorce papers coming!!! Lol i am in sooo much trouble!!! If I get found out!

I figured I'll give squirt 5 eggs and I'll incubate 7. I'm predicting a 50% hatch rate or less so if I get 5 babies DH never needs to know I got 12 eggs. And that assumes all 12 eggs aren't damaged in shipping!!!
 

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