It's days like this that leave you almost too frustrated to do anything.
Woke up and checked on chicks in the brooder to find NINE OF THEM had died last night. No clue why, either. Fine yesterday, dropped dead today. And they were ALL chicks I had gotten from McMurray Hatchery. So I paid **** good money for them... to die.
Then I walked outside. My second-to-last Easter Egger hen is missing. She MAY be laying an egg somewhere, so I'll wait to declare her gone. But then I looked in the former silkie pen - which still housed three frizzles, one bantam mixed breed, and one half-bantam EE. One frizzle and my full bantam were gone. It's not bad enough that something has attacked and taken all three silkies, but now one of my frizzles too!
Within seconds, I was able to find the full bantam though. She has always been very good at free-ranging, and has wanted out of that pen for ages. It looks like when they got attacked, she got the moment she needed to escape. She was off under the porch happily scratching for bugs. I'm so glad I found her though because she's a total sweetheart. I called her and she wandered up to me, so I picked her up and took her inside for a closer look and some fresh scratch grain. She just sat in my arms as I pet her - until the food was in sight, of course! But she never once tried to get out of my hands otherwise.
I took her back outside and flipped some logs for her to gorge on earth worms. Since she's a good flyer, and used to free-ranging anyway, I just let her stay out.
In the meantime, I've got NO CLUE how to deal with the frizzles, aside from tossing them in the big pen with all of the babies. The frizzle roo can be a little aggressive though, and there's a fast-maturing silkie/EE mix roo in there already. None of those babies are less than a month old, so they should be okay. And there are so many that I'm pretty sure the pecking will be spread out enough between them all. The ducks and geese are also in there though, and I let them out regularly, so I may have to do a more controlled release each day, since the Frizzles may or may not try to follow.
Grr!
It sucks not having the money to finish a PROPER enclosure for these other breeds! I'm just watching them disappear from my back yard! Losing so many in one day really makes me want to throw in the towel, but then I have so many good birds!
