Rural Gardening: I'm so upset! 3 babies dead and two more injured., 1 by kassy_51

kassy_51 wrote:
We have been raising chickens for a little over 3 years now. We have lost one to a neighbors dog, almost lost one to a hawk. Cats never bothered the chickens. We had leghorns that would chase stray cats out of the yard.
We have had a friendly neighbor cat come through the yard to stop by us outside and greet us, and it ignored the chickens completely.
And we have one chicken that I call our nursing home chicken. At some point she must have had a stroke. She can't see out of one eye, couldn't walk at all on one leg, but now limps on it some. We have to keep her in a pen away from the rest of the chickens, or they would pick on her. And she has still been laying eggs for us.
Remember, chickens will pick on any one that they single out as being weak also.

This is Mitties who we lost last month, with one of our 5 week old chicks. She would never hurt any of out baby chicks or adult chickens.