I am not sure if "Managing your flock" is the right place for a mysterious case of the disappeared peep, but here I am. I live in central Chile on a small farmland at the junction of two wild rivers in a valley. My husband and I have a 750 square-foot walk-in aviary that we designed and built ourselves for our pet peacock. Soon after the introduction of the peacock, we also introduced chickens and a peahen. For two years we've had a perfectly peaceful coexistence of a pair of young peas, a rooster and four hens. This past summer (just a few months ago here in the southern hemisphere) we allowed some of our eternally broody hens to hatch some of their eggs. We didn't want too many chickens so we only allowed the hatching of four. Now we have additional two nearly fully grown hens, one two-month old hen, and and one month-and-a-half old peep.
The aviary is secured from predators on all 6 sides. Inside there is a walk-in house as well, where there are nesting boxes and night roosts. I spend a lot of time with my birds. I know them well. All have personalities and habits. My boy pea is like a dog. He answers to voice commands and plays with me. I know when he is moody and when he is calm. Everything has been silky smooth recently.
Yet, last night I had 11 birds, and this morning I have 10. The youngest peep has vanished without a trace.
There is no body, no kill site, everyone else is behaving like nothing happened. There was no predator alarm in the night. No predators could have gotten in anywhere. There are no cracks, tears, holes, any entrances or exits anywhere that a peep or a predator could have used. He just vanished.
The only two things I can think of is 1. snake - possibly, we have snakes but not very large ones. 2. the birds did it. Is it possible for chickens to ... eat ... one of their own? Or for the peacock for that matter to have just eaten a young chicken? I don't know what else to think. It's the perfect locked room mystery.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Attached are picks of my flock.
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The aviary is secured from predators on all 6 sides. Inside there is a walk-in house as well, where there are nesting boxes and night roosts. I spend a lot of time with my birds. I know them well. All have personalities and habits. My boy pea is like a dog. He answers to voice commands and plays with me. I know when he is moody and when he is calm. Everything has been silky smooth recently.
Yet, last night I had 11 birds, and this morning I have 10. The youngest peep has vanished without a trace.
There is no body, no kill site, everyone else is behaving like nothing happened. There was no predator alarm in the night. No predators could have gotten in anywhere. There are no cracks, tears, holes, any entrances or exits anywhere that a peep or a predator could have used. He just vanished.
The only two things I can think of is 1. snake - possibly, we have snakes but not very large ones. 2. the birds did it. Is it possible for chickens to ... eat ... one of their own? Or for the peacock for that matter to have just eaten a young chicken? I don't know what else to think. It's the perfect locked room mystery.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Attached are picks of my flock.
[
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