It's especially sad because this was -- of course -- the absolute cutest chick of the batch, an extra fluffy-puffy yellow-gold one, a top contestant in the Most Likely To Be Mistaken For An Easter Decoration contest. Murphy's Law of Chicken Depredation says that they always get your favorite one first.
I have a little bantam hen who made a nest for herself on my patio. Every day some other hens would shove her out of the nest to lay their own eggs there, so I've had 3 weeks of tending her and checking her nest every night in order to remove the unwanted new eggs. I was so happy when her eggs began to hatch and I took the feed bucket that held her nest and placed it all inside a plastic-bottomed wire rabbit cage. I didn't want the other hens to interrupt her on this day while her 4 eggs hatched, I feared they would try to hurt the emerging chicks.
The first to hatch was a pretty striped EE type chick, next was this fluffy yellow one. Late last night a third striped chick hatched, and one last green egg still had a chick working its way out.
This morning I found the yellow chick about 12 inches away from the nest, dead, with just its head & neck slicked down with slime. The rest of its body was still so pretty & puffy. That's how I knew it was a victim of a snake, probably a red corn snake, they will catch & kill a chick, then try to swallow it, get up to the shoulders, and spit it out. Maybe because it's too big to swallow, maybe the hen was pecking at it in defense.
Another chick, the first to hatch, was also dead but still in the nest. I don't know if the snake also killed it, it was fluffy all over. Maybe it did but didn't attempt to swallow it, maybe the hen crushed it in her efforts to defend them from the snake. The third chick was all right, and is the only survivor of the clutch. The last chick got out of the shell this morning, but died before it could ever dry off. It had some goo around its umbilicus, it had other problems.
I will be bringing this hen & her surviving chick indoors each night for a while, at least until it's past snake-eating size. And maybe set out signs for the snakes saying "Eat THIS (mice) Not This (my chickies!)" I can't fault the snake, I actually like these kinds of snakes & we keep 2 that I've caught in my yard as pets. I raise mice to feed them, you think they'd put a good word in for us with their wild cousins. All of these red corn snakes I've encountered have been very docile and easy to catch with my bare hands. Which I do whenever I see them, and take them to release, with permission, at local nature centers.
I'm sharing all this because I know you all can sympathize & understand. And also as a cautionary tale, to consider keeping your chicks in snake-proof containers, especially overnight.
