5 brown on Sunday.

I'd been away from Monday-Saturday. Neighbors were "taking care" of my livestock and cat. They weren't doing well, perhaps by ignorance - one of the Aracauna hens somehow was under the lid of a feed can (I use trashcans to store feed, plastic lid was covering the hen). She smelled bad, had been stuck in what amounts to a sauna for an unknown number of days - 3 eggs there with her (one had been eaten) so I'm guessing 3 or 4 days. Today she appears to be recovering, yesterday the other hens saw a chance to change the pecking order and were challenging her in her weakened state.

the juvenile birds were underfed, and had no water when I got home on Saturday. I've been going through about 80 pounds of feed per week, only 30 pounds had been fed during the time I was gone. In addition one of the Cornish X Rock birds from the first cohort had leg problems - I'd called to check on Wednesday and was told no problems... that bird was not able to easily get to food and water (not that there was enough of either) due to leg weakness - Sunday it was attacked by other birds and died - I don't butcher chickens that I didn't slaughter as I have no good way to tell how freshly dead they are in that case, and salmonella, etc can proliferate in short order.

So I will need to either get the neighbors to learn how to really care for live stock or find a new caretaker for when I travel. thankfully next time I travel my son will be here. He knows how to take care of chickens - his mom had fowl in Alaska when he was in middle school and high school. In addition the flocks will have merged which will make some things easier.