In case one strays...
We get a few chicks each year as they have all been taken by predators, and not one of them will use the nesting box. We have egg hunts and have found that they don't go that far from the coop. They find some private spot and use it for a while until something happens and then we start the egg hunts again.
BTW our last remaining chicken this year is now cooped up and allowed out into a small run. My heart is sore with so many taken one way or another.
Lee our lonely chicken.
Yeah, I was keeping up with your perils... Gotta make your coop Fort Knox!
We have fixed it so now it is tight and safe and we clipped her good wing while the damaged one is recuperating so now she goes out a little in the run but I think free range is not going to be possible up here in the wilds of New Hampshire.
Do they get snatched in the day time??
I have never seen it happen so we can only surmise.
Two, Lee's sisters, were just killed by two stray hunting dogs who just broke their necks and left them. They came back a little later so we know it was them.
The 3 babies were in the coop during the night but I saw a fox wandering around the edge of the property the next morning and he didn't go away until I waved my arms and growled.