They say you’re not supposed to count your chickens before they’re hatched.

However…

Failing to count them once they have is equally as devastating.

About a month ago, we received our order of day-old broiler chicks. (In case you’re wondering, “broiler” is code for “future chicken nuggets”.)

Yes, these little fluff balls were brought to our farm to have a wonderful life and then, when the time is right, be butchered and shared with our friends and family.

We started our endeavor with about 75-ish chicks. I sound uncertain about the number because I am. I know for sure we received at least one bonus bird with our order, which can be spotted in the upper-center (and a tad to the right) in the photo below. S/he is the little black one there, and is rocking the top-hat, but you can’t see it very well in the pic.  Since I didn’t do an actual head count when I opened my chirping box from the post office that day, we’re left with a guesstimate in the numbers department.

Not my best move.

We lost a few in the first pen, but everyone seemed to be ready for more space so we moved them to one of the goat-kidding pens we’d constructed last winter, as seen here.

At quick glance of this photo, you might think, “Jeeze, lady… just count them already”. But what this photo doesn’t show you is how fast these little guys move around! It’s like a tiny room filled with fluffy pinballs, bouncing and ricocheting about! Just when you think they’re all standing still, it never fails.  You get to number 27, someone chirps, “Switch!”, and they all move around, swapping spots. It’s impossible to keep straight how many times you’ve accounted for the same bird!

Aside from our inability to take attendance, life was looking good in the bigger pen.

Until death happened.

Every day, there would be another dead chick… sometimes two… and for no apparent reason. One morning, as I peered into their pen while unwiring their gate, I noticed that it seemed like we were MISSING birds. As in… poof! Gone! We did a quick mental count of how many we knew we lost, attempted to tally up the now white-feathered, slightly slower pinballs, and realized it.

Something was getting in there and taking birds.

Armed with rolls of chicken wire, zip ties, and a pliers, we set out to increase the chicken room security to maximum level.

By the time we were done, it was like we had our very own poultry Alcatraz.

And yet, two mornings later, there were more dead birds. Except this time the carcasses were left behind.

So much for Alcatraz.

Despite every effort we made to close even the tiniest gap in the wire, the death tally continued to rise.

As a last ditch effort, my husband got the idea to move the remaining birds into the goat pen with the goats. Our other free-range chickens were hatching chicks right and left in there, and somehow managed to stay alive, yet, our maximum security birds were dying one by one.

It made no sense.

So, with all sensibility out the window already, a “what-the-hell” kind of decision was made and the birds were moved out of their “secure” home into the open area with the goats.

Now, several weeks later, I still don’t know exactly how many are out there for certain, but I do know we haven’t been finding any dead birds.  But without having a concrete count, I have no way of knowing if something is getting in there & carrying them off.

Moral of the story: If you don’t know what you’ve got, you won’t know when it’s gone.

Count your chickens, friends.

Count your chickens.