BeeCee died

BeeCee, the big black Silkie cockerel, died Thursday afternoon.  I noticed he looked off that morning, and upon inspection he had saliva all down his neck and chest.  I separated him, and the thought flitted through my mind I ought to simply slaughter him and salvage the carcass.  I ignored that thought.

He basically sat around in the shade in an isolation cage the rest of the morning, and hubby said he saw BeeCee take a drink in the afternoon, but when mid-afternoon feeding time came around, BeeCee was dead on his side and rigor had not fully set in yet.  It's a shame, because BeeCee was my biggest Silkie cockerel.

He had been in with the five splash Silkie pullets, with intent to hatch eggs next month.  Instead, I pulled out eight eggs from the refrigerator, and put them under the four setting splash Silkie pullets while letting the fifth out to join Dude's group.  There was a ninth egg under a Silkie, so I marked all nine for incubation.  This way I can pull out unmarked eggs for possible setting under another if they take to the new Silkiebator house right away.

Here's hoping for a 100% hatch rate on those eggs.