Our chicks are six weeks old and have been outside for a week. We have a lot of predators in the area bears, hawks, racoons, possums, snakes, rats, feral cats, etc. But we built our coop to stand up to those predators or so we thought.
This morning I had to leave the house early cause my crown broke (again) so it wasn't even daylight yet (right around 6 am), but I went to check on the girls anyways. Two of them were sitting right next to the door of the enclosed run and I was like "girls yall aren't supposed to leave the coop!" Our coop is inside the enclosed run, which is COMPLETELY enclosed, wire all the way around it. I knew something was off cause they don't usually get up until sunrise and so I opened the run door and started seeing bodies everywhere.
I ran back to the house and started beating on the window to get my husband's attention then ran back out to the coop. Our easter egger, my abs favorite of the girls, who was just getting her beard & muff in was lying on the coop floor next to the GL Wynadotte.... The SL Wynadotte who was finally starting to get that white/silver color throughout her body was lying at the edge of the coop and our Beautiful Red Star was up underneath the coop, split straight down the middle with her guts exposed.
The problem is we have NO idea how they got in. There is not a single piece of wire cut, broken, pulled aside, no dirt has been dug up and we never leave the run open for longer than it takes to walk inside. We did have a little problem yesterday where the netting above the door was loose but we cut off some wood and secured it right after dinner. We did our usual 3 times (before we leave, when we get home, when we put them to bed) a day walk-through when we put the girls to bed. They were acting a little off the past two days fighting each other to be back against the wall in the corner. We couldn't figure that out but figured it was just a crazy chicken thing... now I wonder if they knew? Or maybe they had already seen something previously??
Do you all have any idea what did this?? I have posted pictures just so people could actually see what happened maybe it will make more sense that what I've posted.
We have taken the two survivors back to the brooder in the barn... my husband is even more heartbroken than I am. We just cannot figured out what we missed in their defenses or what was small enough to get through.
Thanks.
This morning I had to leave the house early cause my crown broke (again) so it wasn't even daylight yet (right around 6 am), but I went to check on the girls anyways. Two of them were sitting right next to the door of the enclosed run and I was like "girls yall aren't supposed to leave the coop!" Our coop is inside the enclosed run, which is COMPLETELY enclosed, wire all the way around it. I knew something was off cause they don't usually get up until sunrise and so I opened the run door and started seeing bodies everywhere.
I ran back to the house and started beating on the window to get my husband's attention then ran back out to the coop. Our easter egger, my abs favorite of the girls, who was just getting her beard & muff in was lying on the coop floor next to the GL Wynadotte.... The SL Wynadotte who was finally starting to get that white/silver color throughout her body was lying at the edge of the coop and our Beautiful Red Star was up underneath the coop, split straight down the middle with her guts exposed.
The problem is we have NO idea how they got in. There is not a single piece of wire cut, broken, pulled aside, no dirt has been dug up and we never leave the run open for longer than it takes to walk inside. We did have a little problem yesterday where the netting above the door was loose but we cut off some wood and secured it right after dinner. We did our usual 3 times (before we leave, when we get home, when we put them to bed) a day walk-through when we put the girls to bed. They were acting a little off the past two days fighting each other to be back against the wall in the corner. We couldn't figure that out but figured it was just a crazy chicken thing... now I wonder if they knew? Or maybe they had already seen something previously??
Do you all have any idea what did this?? I have posted pictures just so people could actually see what happened maybe it will make more sense that what I've posted.
We have taken the two survivors back to the brooder in the barn... my husband is even more heartbroken than I am. We just cannot figured out what we missed in their defenses or what was small enough to get through.
Thanks.
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