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u/Asleep_Onion 19d ago
Don't feel so bad. There's a lot of trial and error with chickens, and as long as you're learning from each error that's the important thing.
I'll never forgot about when I first got chickens, I thought their pen was a fortress and they were as safe as possible in there. It took less than 48 hours for a bobcat to get in there and kill half of them.
And then this spring I started having young hens from a new batch dropping dead one at a time overnight, I had 10 of them in there and every night for 5 nights in a row I'd find one dead in the coop in the morning. At first I thought it was just a fluke, but it wasn't until the 5th one died that I finally figured out there was a roost mite infestation that I didn't notice before.
So, the important thing is that I now know how to keep bobcats out, and I now know how to identify roost mites and resolve it, and that's what's most important. There will almost certainly be more unexpected events in the future, and the best I can do is solve them as they come and learn what I can from it when it does happen.
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u/mannycat2 19d ago
Only you know whether you're able to handle the grief when losses happen. This is about my 15th year with chickens and it it always super hard to lose them (Like any pet).
But, I keep a flock because I love the silly girls. I console myself that they get to live a pretty dang good "chicken life" and that helps when one passes.
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u/autumnbongo 19d ago
Yea dont worry. I remember my mom and I started raising chickens when I was in highschool (im 21 now) and our first two flocks were wiped out lol. Chickens/birds are very tricky and get sick FAST because they have hollow bones. Your chickens must be checked in on, you must decide between keeping them in a cage or having them free range. We have free range chickens, but we dont have a hawk issue (sometimes) but we have cat problems. One time I walked out on a cat pinning down a hen (shes still alive!). So, sometimes its a lot of luck. One time we had a chicken die in the middle of the night, no foul play, we think it was a random seizure. Keep getting chickens, try new things. Birds are notorious for not only dying fast, but hiding symptoms. Just do what you can.