I found a dead chick in the run one day

A VERY cogent reminder came this week of the fine line that exists between life and death, especially on a farm.

For the past fortnight I have thrilled at the increasing independence of my little flock of bantam chicks, all sixteen of them. We were amazed that this Mother Bantam had brought so many chicks off.

A flighty, indeed vicious bird, she stuck close to her nest, never budging even when you got close up to where she was sitting.

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Her motto was clearly that if I do not move a feather nor even blink; they won't know I'm there.

Survival tactics I presume.

Then, and in sole charge as John is away, I found a dead chick in the run one morning as I went to let the mini flock out. No sign of trauma, just lying there stiff, head thrown back, claws clenched.

That afternoon two more dead chicks in the yard and then next morning another dead in the pen.

Chief suspect Pip, our young Labrador, who has been known to take a flyer round the yard with a chick in her mouth, cannot have done the dirty deeds as she is in her kennel at night and was with me all of the day.

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I was out during the day yesterday and came back to disaster. Mummy Bantie lay dead in the middle of the yard and five more chick corpses lay nearby. Geoff, who has been coming into help with the stock was flummoxed.

A fox would have taken the corpses away to eat them.

The dogs were all accounted for in their movements. Especially since the start of the deaths. Geoff and I shooed the remaining seven chicks into their pen, difficult, as without their Mum to take the lead, the chicks just kept scattering hither and thither.

I had kept John in touch with the saga but he did have an idea.

"I left some rat poison under those corrugated sheets in the main foldyard" he said. "I thought they would be safe there as the dogs don't go in, the foldyards are empty and the poison was hidden away. Anyway just go and check will you and see if has all gone."

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The rats it turned out had pulled the poison bait out from under the sheets and scattered it around.

Little was left but from chicken droppings around, my poultry must have got in through the bull yards and eaten the bait. I swept away what was left.

Since then two more chicks have died but the remaining five seem fine.

It was a lovely sight to see Mum and sixteen chicks around the yard.

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She was so proud and protective of them. Now they are just little heaps in the muck spreader.

But, when I was in the foldyard,I glimpsed a reddy brown bundle, half concealed amongst some old straw bales.

The bundle was another of my bantams sitting very tight on a clutch of eggs.

Life's full circle starts again.