[WarescotFarm]

Hi everyone I am totally stumped on this one.
The hens hatched some eggs for me on thursday / friday. We have spent a weekend away and left the hens with 2 healthy baby chicks and 2 eggs on their way to hatching. A friend checked on them on Saturday and said still 2 chicks all going well. We have come home Monday night and there are no eggs, no chicks and no fresh eggs laid.
ALL DISAPPEARED! Hens are well and happy in their coop though.
We have a fox proof coop with a tube of chicken wire. Could something else have got in?
There is literally no rtace of blood, feathers, yoke, shell nothing...
Could the chicks be hiding?

Oh we are soooooo gutted 

Any ideas?

[WarescotFarm]

Oh now I am thinking it was the other chicken (Princess Aurora) who may have finished them off, but she wouldn't have eaten her own eggs too would she? And would she have left not even a beak or foot behind?
Oh I am hopping mad! Wanted to go to bed now but just fuming!     

[Fowlman]

Crows ? Stoats ?

[WarescotFarm]

could they get through chicken wire 2 1/2 inch holes?

[SallyintNorth]

We lost two complete broods last year.  It was a mystery until I saw one of the resident hedgehogs ambush a 2-day old chick...  I don't rescue hedgehogs now.

[Fleecewife]

2 1/2 inch wire is huge for chicks.  They could easily have popped out through it and been taken, but equally a stoat, or more likely a rat will have got in and taken them.
We had Muscovey ducklings in our greenhouse one winter, with half inch mesh on the floor, but some still disappeared.  We found it was rats underneath, pulling them down through the tiny mesh.  You wouldn't think it possible, but we saw the evidence, and some bitten ducklings which survived (for a bit).  Eventually the terriers dug out a HUGE rat which had set up home underneath the greenhouse, probably just to feast on the ducklings.
 
So you need much smaller holes in your mesh, or a solid lining around the bottom.

[omnipeasant]

Oh this is sad. I will be sleepless tonight too.

[tizaala]

We have a cluth of 6 that were hatched under a woodpile , the mum introduced them the the rest of the birds and we expected casualties as our cats are out and out killers, as are a lot of the other hens , But for some reason the cats have left them alone and mum sees off any other animal, terrier included, that comes too near. they have survived two weeks now.

[kitchen cottage]

last year I had a broody hen in the coop with about 12 eggs under her..... one morning.... all gone, not a yoke or a piece of shell.... it was a mystery....

[Sylvia]

Rats!!!! Without a doubt!

[in the hills]

Rats take a lot of my neighbours chicks from their old barn where all the hens sleep. 


Reckon quite a few predators would pop through those holes/bury underneath.

[omnipeasant]

Tizaala wrote "We have a cluth of 6 that were hatched under a woodpile"

What sort of a bird is a woodpile?

[northfifeduckling]

I had a broody once that eat all but one of hers, I suspect when they started hatching. She ate her own eggs, too, after. I don't think they will eat them once they are fully hatched, though! More likely rats....

[WarescotFarm]

well replaced today with a week old silkie and week old bantum cross. kids didn't notice - phew!
 

[Bramblecot]

  We found it was rats underneath, pulling then down through the tiny mesh.  You wouldn't think it possible, but we saw the evidence, a
 
So you need much smaller holes in your mesh, or a solid lining around the bottom.

the same happened to our bantams last year -  rats!