Then there was 3! Where are my baby chicks disappearing to?

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I had 5 cute chicks Tuesday. They were out in the pen with their silkie mother. On Thursday morning I checked on them and then there was 4. I checked on them this morning still 4 and then this afternoon only 3. Absolutely no trace of the missing chicks.

What do you think happened to them? Maybe a snake?

The pen is within my fenced yard and I have 4 guard dogs so it wouldn't have been a racoon. I don't think the chicks could squeeze through the chicken wire. The other 3 chickens in the pen didn't seem to bother the chicks at all but could they have killed a chick and eaten it?

Now I have the last 3 in the house in my brooder. And have a lonely momma silkie.

-- Anita in NC (anitaholton@mindspring.com), May 04, 2002

Answers

My first guess would be a snake, the second would be a rat. I lost a few ducklings to a rat years ago. I don't think an adult chicken would have eaten the whole chick, there should still be some evidence of it around. The only suggestions I would have would be to either keep the chicks in the house or get some hardware cloth & put it down under & around the pen, if it's a snake it won't be able to get in from under the pen or on the sides if you leave the sharp edges on & at the top so if the snake tries to cross he'll come in contact with the sharp points, plus the holes are too small to get through. If it's a rat then the only thing to do is keep them in or else you'd have to enclose the whole pen in hardware cloth which is hard to work with & expensive. I don't know what type of set up you have but a few rat traps might catch him/them if they're the problem. At least you'd find out if they are around the chick area. Our neighbor lost 32 guinea keets to a black snake, they eat them whole so there's no evidence unless you see them while they're in the pen. I wish I had some other options but from what I've been told about black snakes, once they find a good source of meals they'll keep coming back until there's no food left. Good Luck, Kathy

-- Kathy Aldridge (beckoningwinds@yahoo.com), May 04, 2002.

Anita, everytime someone asks me this question I answer like this. It makes no difference "what" got your chicks. The list of predators you have left them prey to is a couple of pages long. You need secure, overnight quarters for your poultry. Check the archives and you will find many discussions about this along with many ideas on how to protect them. Chicks, ducklings and other little poultry are nothing but conveniently wrapped hors d'oeuvres and everything eats them! If you have only chicken wire to protect them, as you know now, that will not help. Chicken wire only keeps chickens IN, not anything OUT. If you don't have a good book on raising chicks this is a good time to get one. Now having said that, I don't raise chickens(only ducks and some other wild birds)so I don't know what quality of books are out there and how good they are at telling you how to protect your babies and adults too. So sorry about the chicks. They sound just darling. A hard but necessary lesson. Hope all goes well with them now. LQ PS there are a number of websites that have plans for building chicken houses and I bet other forum members will have some good ideas too. :)

-- Little Quacker in OR (carouselxing@juno.com), May 04, 2002.

Little chicks can and do slip through chicken wire and become tasty snacks for cats, rats, snakes, crows........ Their incessant peeping will drive some dogs nuts and it takes just a snap and a swallow for it to be gone.

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@somewhere.com), May 04, 2002.

Agree with LQ, and with Laura. A persistent baby chick can get through one inch mesh chicken wire, and then it wouldn't be too far to the nearest of four natural predators. Alternatively, just about anything can find it's way in through that mesh, or in the future tear the mesh apart to destroy any leftover short-term survivors.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), May 05, 2002.

I had the same problem with guinea keets last year. First one disappeared, then another, and then another.....no trace of them. I suspect it was a snake. We have lots of huge, black snakes on the farm. SO, I did build a guinea Hilton with salvage lumber and hardware cloth. It was expensive but not that bad, and at least the birds were safe. This is where the babies live until they become adult size.

TD

-- TD Matheny (theny@intrex.net), May 05, 2002.



Adult chickens can and do eat baby chicks.we lost a whole setting of chicks this way.Apparantly the other hens swallowed them whole.Had them separated but the hens forced thier way through the barracade to get to them.We ate those hens, made good dumplings.

-- vickiP. (countrymous@webtv.net), May 06, 2002.

could be an air attack. I would line the inside of the pen with 1/4 inch hardware cloth. to keep out all but the smallest snake it will have to be worm size to get in and the chickens will eat it.

-- steve buckley (grandpa_steve@hotmail.com), May 09, 2002.

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