Now Ali, you did not just bring abortion into the happy thread!
careful careful...
Hatchlings do have a high mortality rate, but you can blame Darwin for that. Small defects that are fatal keep the flock healthy. I may have mismanaged their transition not keeping them quite warm enough but the culling of the weak improves over-all flock health. My birds have a nice life being free-range but they also are evolving to fit their environmental niche here. They are smarter around predators and more able to handle our climate than birds right out of the hatchery. Life and death are so intertwined that I can feel loss and joy over the same event.