Shellybabe, the last (6th) chick hatched with a funny crook in it's neck. It's not eating much and seems sick. It's under a heat lamp in my bathroom with water and room to run around. I'm thinking it's going to either die peacefully or be a runt that I keep as my favorite pet. Poor little thing. There is no way to give it to mommy hen and the others. My hen is a great mother. And she knows how to count. When she was distracted I scooped up one baby and a few moments later she started counting, noticed one was missing and went nuts until I put the little one back down. I find that freaking amazing. Meanwhile, they are putting up with a zillion teenaged boys on a skate ramp only feet away from the henhouse. Hopefully chickens don't need peace and quiet.

Raccoons are among the small group of animals that seem to be able to adapt to human environments. Please don't put out moth balls. There are animals that will mistakenly eat them. It is not a pleasant death. If you're going to kill them do it quick. Really surprised about the perlite -- would think that would rip up the critters insides. While I sympathize for the folks who lose livestock, I feel for the animals too. As Scott said "everything goes for the easy prey." And let's face it why wouldn't they? We've taken over their hunting areas [& predators by necessity have large hunting ranges], in many cases pushing out or drastically reducing the numbers of their natural prey, and have "stocked" the area with helpless [penned in] and often not too bright [domestic sheep are not the Einsteins of the animal world] prey. The cougars can't "just go somewhere else" or suddenly become herbivores.

Thanks guys, I followed your advice and removed the egg. I made a home-made hole reducer out of a piece of cardboard and taped it inside the box to the front of the box. It's been taped to the hole from all angles. Hoping it will hold up. It is a 1 1/4" or as close as I could get eyeballing it. The chickadees accepted it after a few minutes. Cardboard was the only thing I could think of that is flexible yet sturdy since I have gilbertson boxes. Crossing my fingers for no cowbird attacks. Never had a cowbird egg in 13 years of backyard birding, but now my 1st year at my new house and 1st nest of chickadees ever, I get one.

Today I found an egg in that nest! It's 2cm long (20.5 mm). According to http://www.sialis.org/eggsizes.htm it could be a Carolina wren or House sparrow. It's larger than the wren and smaller than the sparrow. While investigating, a carolina wren was screaming at me from a near by bush, and it seemed to be very upset with me for being there. It may be his nest or he could have a nest near by. I installed spooker on bluebird house that on this yard. Just in case if this is house sprarrow nest. Babies pretty big in this box. (I wrote abot 4 babies earlier, but I was wrong about quantity) I can't stay on that yard for long to make sure they accepted it because have small baby with me right now. Do you think this is a good idea or I should take it down? This is the box Janie - birds lay one egg in day, and same, as you wrote it earlier, skip a day in egg laying. She starting incubation only after she will lay her last egg. All this time eggs stay cold - up to 10 days if she skipping days and lay 5 egg. I surprised that this is new for you.