Jack, the Ripper.

Sweetest looking killing machine you'll ever see.

It's not all ice cream and cotton candy on the farm. Every single thing in Texas exists to kill other things, or so it seems. After doting on the eggs in the incubator for 3 weeks, or being surprised by the hatching of the eggs mid-week. In my defense, this snafu was due to me placing them in the incubator when I was working a variety of shifts during my Squadron's support of hurricane relief (Harvey, Irma, and Maria).

The chicks hatched out well, all things considered with 18 out of 27 hatching. That number isn't ideal, but since I lost track of the hatch schedule, they hatched without turning off the auto-rotation or adjusting the humidity upwards.

They did well in the brooder, and as soon as they were feathered they were introduced into the main flock in the middle of the night. Though small, they were accepted more or less the first day. The problems with young chickens is that they don't have a momma hen to scold and corral them. This is where disaster struck.

Jack is a terrier mix, looks like a Yorkie/Chihuahua blend of some sort. Like all terriers, his prey drive is extremely high, and basically anything that's his size or smaller, it's on like Donkey Kong to the death.

Enter the new baby chickens, oblivious to the cold blooded killer in front of them, and ignoring the rest of the fleeing flock, they apparently didn't give him much sport. We found his victims all within 15 feet of one another, after leaving Jack unattended for no more than 20 minutes. Lessons were learned, money was lost, tears were shed, a new nickname was earned (one of the fellows at work dubbed him Jack the Ripper, and I think it's going to stick), and life goes on.