3.6m Omlet Chicken Run for sale, Brand New in Boxes, Milton Keynes (MK19)

[shtw00724]

My Old English Game Bantam always seems to be very broody. She laid some eggs a few months back and went missing for days and then I discovered her nest. She carried on sitting on them for in excess of 3 weeks after that and there was no way the chicks were going to hatch so I moved her off the nest and lo and behold, the eggs contained dead chicks. More recently, she laid 3 eggs and hatched the chicks, I waited until they hatched before moving them all to some accommodation of their own. When I got up the next morning, 1 of the chicks had disappeared without a trace so I made their little house and run like Fort Knox after that. The remaining 2 chicks have been growing beautifully, feathers on their wings, good appetites etc. They must be at least 2 weeks old now - or were I got up this morning and out popped momma but the 2 baby chicks were stone cold dead. No sign of illness or disease, looks like they had been squashed or suffocated Why would she do this? I don't want fertilized eggs anyway but I have a cockerel. Would it be cruel to keep him totally separate from the hens? I don't want any more chicks to be born/die.

[Redwing]

Sadly some hens will kill chicks, this is more often at hatch though, some dont seem to identify the wet chicks but will accept dry ones from an incubator, others detect something not quite right and will drive the chicks away

 

Sometimes older chicks suffer the same fate but its quite rare (usually the hen rejects them from the start) more often they get caught up in the feathers of the hen (unlikely with your OEG) or get stuck under the hen in deep bedding and suffocate, They could have moved away from the hen in the night and got cold

 

I dont think you will get to the bottom of what happened but as you dont want to hatch again anyway I would just remove eggs and dont let broodies sit in future.

 

You can remove the cockerel but its a lonely old life for a single cockerel (although mine are kept this way for at least part of the year) - far better not to allow the hens to sit on the eggs than remove the cockerel