Baby Chicks Dead - Not Sure What Happened

[ncrymes07]

I am brand new to raising chickens. We moved to a house with 2 acres that already had a chicken coop. Since our three year old son is obsessed with animals we bought him some chickens from Tractor Supply at Easter. We bought 8. One died after a couple days and two got eaten by the dogs before we could find the hole. We have since ordered more chicks. Got them June 24th. We have kept them in the same coop as the big chickens but separated by chicken wire. Here recently the babies have been flying over the chicken wire and roaming about the coop while the big chickens free range outside.

Last night we got home late and didn’t get the chicken coop shut before dark. The 5 big chickens were roosting like normal but we found 6 baby chickens dead in the pasture. Not too bloody at all with maybe a little bald spot on neck/shoulder area. Found 5 baby chickens hiding in all kinds of spots and 7 baby chicks completely missing. One baby chick had his intestines hanging out (maybe stepped on by horses?).

Does anyone have an idea of what happened? What to do to prevent it happening again?

 

[FrozenRed]

Sounds like most of its an issue of security. I keep my chicks caged until they're big enough to "hold their own" against my grown chickens and it seems to work best for me. Try putting them in a situation where they have less ability to wander and you may have more luck. Sorry you lost them but hopefully the situation can be rectified and you won't lose anymore

 

[FrozenRed]

Likely the big chickens got the small dead ones with feathers missing due to the fact that if it were a different predator it likely would have gone for your other chickens as well

 

[happyfrenchman]

Baby chicks are incredibly vulnerable and I (long ago) gave up letting them free range. A hawk that is just passing through, will whip around in a U turn if it sees some baby chicks wandering about. Just about any passing predator would kill those chicks and I could not hazard a guess.... that they were not taken away is a clue but with all of them being killed.... I don't know. they might have been killed earlier regardless of your coming home late.
I do know, that your overall security has been demonstrated to be terrible. That is all part of the learning curve..... If I were you, I would beef up that facility so that you can keep the chicks inside a more secure area until they are larger. I put my chicks out in the coop pretty quickly, but they cannot leave the big coop. Another thing that loves baby chicks are snakes.... snakes are a security hazard that require tight wire and carpentry and even then they can sometimes get in... So for starters, I would suggest you really need to keep them baby chicks secured early on. Maybe keeping them separate from the free ranging option if nothing else. Good luck and welcome to chickenry.

 

[Birdsong 82]

Really the only way to prevent that is to have a backup plan in case you can’t get the coop closed at night. Or if you know there’s a possibility make sure to keep them in the run and do a daily to weekly check for any holes. I’ve heard that there are I guess solar powered doors that will automatically open And close. The bigger chickens are used to going in and roosting at night but the smaller chickens probably haven’t gotten used to that schedule so that’s why I don’t let my younger ones free range until they’re laying eggs in our used to roosting at night and know that that is their home. But if there is an opening where the chicks can fly out a predator could get in

 

[Birdsong 82]

Oh and

 

[ncrymes07]

We finally saw the culprit tonight. It’s a weasel. Trying to work on prevention.

 

[Birdsong 82]

If it’s a weasel it will definitely be back. Most time most predators do come back after they’ve had a chicken dinner. So I would definitely Take a really really good look around your coop and run for any weak spots at all. Even the smallest opening. You could post some pictures of your area on there. There are lots of people on BYC with awesome advice on predator proofing. We went full on Fort Knox

 

[livestockprojectswithkids]

We gave up on chicks this year. We have tried everything and some years we had good luck. We also use a chicken tractor for quite awhile before we put them together with the older birds.