Silkies Killing Chicks

[holywood]

At the moment i have 3 very broody silkies all sitting on eggs, none of which are Silkie eggs.

One of them had been sitting on her own eggs and hatched 1. We have also a little broody Bantam who was on another couple of silkie egss. Long story short i ended up putting the hatched chick with the bantam as she has been and is a great mom.

The Silkies on the other hand have been awful !! I have now had broken eggs under one, a chick pecked to death with another (so i swapped her to eggs which were due to hatch at a later date). I replaced her with one of the other broodys who then yesterday had one hatch then leave it out just to die as i discovered when I got home from work (it was barely alive) i got some heat to it then put it into our incubator and i'm glad to say this morning it was dry and looking good


I was wondering if the reason for pecking one to death and abandoning one was due to the fact they were not Silkies ?
I have taken the last 4 eggs and now put them in the incubator as i don't want them killed either.

 

[subhanalah]

Are they sharing a nest with eachother? Sometimes hens can fight over eggs/chicks and eggs can be broken or chicks killed

 

[holywood]

The one which pecked the chick and killed it was isolated, i put her back in the larger coup and then put another into that coup, she is the one who now left the chick yesterday to die. That particular coup is rather dark could that be a problem?

(The broken egg i think had been stamped on and that was by the 3rd Silkie)