I'm so sorry to hear about your babies. We just lost our first girl last night. It was not pretty or fun to clean up. It was all feathers and legs. I can't figure out what got ours either.
I'm so glad so many of you kiss you're chickens. My kids want to kiss their little heads all day. I tried to tell them no, but it's hard to say no to love.
I love the idea of using pallets for you coop. I just got 3 baby Buff Orpingtons 3 days ago. We have never had chicks before and we need to build our coop. Right now we are just working on scounging any scraps from anyone that we can.