I have a weird problem I'm trying to understand. I had six hens, 3 CLB and 3 lavender Orpingtons. A little over a month ago a stray dog killed my favorite, one of the CLB. So I went and got another one that looked just like her and two blue laced red Wyandotes. I am fairly certain that one of those two is a going to end up being a rooster. They are about a month old, a little more. Have all their feathers grown in. Two nights ago I put them up on a shelf in the garage to roost and turned out the lights and was about 15 ft away working and it looked like the male chick was harassing the other two chicks. It didn't go on very long and I wasn't about to stay outside watching them. I figured it was just my imagination or normal behavior so I wasn't going to step in. But the next morning when I put them all outside with the older birds who have mostly accepted them. About 3 hours later I went to let them back in to feed them lunch and the CLB was nowhere to be found. I walked the whole yard, the neighbors yards, not a feather. My neighbor 3 houses down has chickens, we hear his rooster crowing all the time. Is there a chance my new CLB ran away from home to avoid being harassed all night while she tries to sleep? Or is it more likely that a predator got her? A hawk tried to get my chickens last week but was unsucessful and I heard it and ran it off. My yard is heavily shadowed by trees and it's really hard for a hawk to make an attack run into my yard that would be fruitful. It would have to catch them on the ground, which I know is possible if they can corner them. But CLB chicks at that age can fly very well and that little one was super fast. We also have feral cats but they've tried to hunt the full grown chickens and found themselves being attacked by all of them at once. They come in the yard to get water and the chickens tolerate them. They aren't afraid of them at all because they've already won that battle. I doubt they would let them snag a chick, they come running to their defense if I scare the chicks and the flock generally treats me like one of them. The only two things I can think of is that she ran away or got chased away and followed the sounds of the rooster a few houses down. Maybe she got eaten. Do chickens that age run away? Is their hope? Tell me there's a chance!
The other two chicks didn't act different at all once she was gone. They came right in and were eating like nothing happened. Normally they would call and call for her and go looking for her if she didn't respond. But they did none of that at all. 3 hours isn't' that long and it seemed like they forgot she existed. I didn't find a single feather within a hundred yards and I looked under every bush and checked everything I thought she might have got trapped in. She was really friendly, maybe a neighborhood kid found her?
The other two chicks didn't act different at all once she was gone. They came right in and were eating like nothing happened. Normally they would call and call for her and go looking for her if she didn't respond. But they did none of that at all. 3 hours isn't' that long and it seemed like they forgot she existed. I didn't find a single feather within a hundred yards and I looked under every bush and checked everything I thought she might have got trapped in. She was really friendly, maybe a neighborhood kid found her?
