Chicken bald back

[KeithT]

This morning when I went to clean the droppings tray I found the body of sparrow chick.

My first suspicion was that the hens may have pecked it but there were no signs of injury.

Perhaps, it blundered into the Eglu and got trampled.

I have no idea where the nest might be and the bird was clearly too small to fly any distance if at all.

[WitchHazel]

Poor thing. Maybe it was a fledgling which crashed and just couldn't get out again? Perhaps its parents just couldn't get to it to show it the way back. It may have had a heart attack under stress.

 

We had a little fledgling fall into our garden. We didn't touch it, of course. We kept an eye on it from a distance, and kept the cats away. After some time, one of the parent birds flew down beside it, and then away, then back again. Eventually the little fledgling tried to take off again. It took a couple of goes, watched from a distance by the parent (and us). It managed to fly away, we were all rather relieved.

[Cinnamon]

I once found a dead rat curled up like it was asleep in the nest box.

Didn't even know there were rats around much until then!

We have no idea how on earth it got in there. if you saw our set up, you would see why. We think it might have squeezed in via the poo tray.

 

Worse thing was one of the hens had laid an egg next to it

[Alis girls]

It will keep egg warm I suppose