at the feed store where i work we ended up having to put mesh on top of the brooders because the little kids werent being monitored by their parents. they would walk right up to the brooder and grab the poor little chickens and the chicks would try get away and the kids held on tighter to them so they couldnt... lets just say we had too many poor chicks that we found smothered or close to being done that we just said no more petting chicks. there was one incident where a woman brought in 5 children and they were running around screaming cuz they were so excited about the chicks. she was standing next to a little boy who was about 7 or 8 and he was holding a duckling. the little ducky wriggled just enough to fall all the way to the ground from his hand and he yell "oh no mommy, he is getting away!!" and the next thing i see is this little boy go STOMP and this womans jaw drops. she picks up the dead chick and puts it back in the brooder, gets all of her kids together, walks over to me and angrily says, "you know there's a dead duck in that bin!?! if that died from being sick or its infected with something and my babies get sick im suing your store for everything it has!!!" i walked over to the bin and picked the poor thing up. i said to her "this poor thing looks like it was squished or stepped on, look at what all the pressure did to his butt, and the poor thing is still breathing, oh the poor thing, we cant let him suffer..." and i walked away. i heard from my cashiers that she came up fuming and i got a complaint about being a jerk to customer.... that was the day we put netting over our brooders
