Death Of The Chicks
So.
We’ve been running a lot of cows through the chute lately. Trying to adopt calves onto cows.
It’s been a rough spring this has gone on a lot this year.
Once early on there was one chicken egg I found laid in the chute. I picked it up and set it aside so it wouldn’t get broken. The next morning there were three eggs!
The chickens were loose and I decided it was possible that three of them had laid there over night. Or maybe the kids had put the first one back?
Now again last night we ran a cow in to let her, adopted, calf nurse. It was late. There were NO eggs!
I caught the chickens shortly after that and put them in their chicken tractor. We are one hen short. She has been acting broody and we’ve left her to do her own thing.
This morning when I went to put the cow in the chute there were six eggs! All exactly the same color and texture, not slightly different like they would be from different chickens. All nestled up against the pile of cow poop left behind from the night before. I know they hadn’t been there!
With only one hen loose and only over night to do it in how in the world did we get six eggs laid in the chute!!!
After the last time we moved the eggs from the chute our chicken stopped putting them there. Many people suggested that she could have been picking them up and moving them there. I would never have believed it, but it is the only theory that makes sense.
We had collected the eggs them left them sitting in the basket. we have quite a backlog of eggs and I didn’t want to put them in the fridge not knowing how old they were. But I never thought any more about it.
Then I found a dead chick in the chute.
It had hatched. It was dry and fluffy and looked like it had been up and about.
I started to worry about what had been in those eggs.
If there had been chicks in them they would be dead already. They were sitting in the back porch in the basket. It’s been cold out. If there were chicks we had already killed them.
I told The Goblin Child to take them out and get rid of them. Maybe see if there was anything in them while she did.
But take them far away from the house!
If there were dead chicks the kids might as well get a biology lesson out of it.
Sure enough. Inside each egg was a perfect little chick. Nearly fully formed and very much dead already.
Now our driveway, not so far from the house, is strewn with chick bodies and egg splatters everywhere.
Still no sign of the hen or any other chicks.
Gross