Sadness has fallen upon the Gap Mountain Garden. Our chicken Fort Knox turned out to be not so Fort Knoxy. After a year and a half we had our first break-in and it was tragic. I arrived home from a walk with the dogs Wednesday afternoon. Our normal path comes up our back property and past the hen house. As I approached, I saw that something was amiss. The hoop run was fully dented in from the top and there was an eerie silence across the yard. As I approached, I noticed feathers. And then the head of our timid little Golden-laced Wyandotte (damn she was pretty!). And then her leg. When I finally got to the coop I saw that our Light Brahma was still inside of the coop (unable to get to the run because the structure had caved in and blocked access). She was clearly stressed and I understood why. She just saw her 3 roomates butchered right in front of her.
I examined the structural fail more closely. I felt guilty that my design had not held off the predator. It had worked so well up until now. Not one incident. I noticed some small footprints and nail marks where it had dug into the structure. I'm suspsecting a hungry raccoon. The bad thing was that this happened in broad daylight. The husband had let the chickens out of the coop that morning and served up some cracked corn. All was in order. By 5pm though, things were very, very wrong. This was a bold raccoon - although I can't blame him or her. There's not usually a lot of human activity in our holler during the day. He or she was free to do what they wanted without interruption.
I closed up the coop as best I could as daylight was waning. I locked up the Brahma, and hoped for the best. Fingers crossed that she would still be there in the morning. If so, I would spend more time securing the run. At 10pm we let the dogs out into their yard for one last bathroom break. Our greyhound, Copper was very interested in the corner of the run right outside of our door. To my extreme surprise, she had sniffed out our new (for 2012) Speckled Sussex we dubbed 'Special'. I was surprised to see that she was still alive (against my better judgement, I had become fond of her). Poor gal was huddled in the corner, roosting on a plastic chair - she was obviously rattled. I picked her up and checked her out and she had been pretty roughed up in the tail area. Most of her feathers were gone and there were some scratches. It seemed like she would be okay though. We brought her out to the coop to join the Brahma. I think they were relieved to see each other....as was I. We only had 4 chickens. I wasn't too sure what I was going to do with just one.
I'm still not sure these girls are through the woods. After closer inspection, I noticed that the brahma was fairly mangled too. Neither have been interested in their cracked corn over the past two days though they are drinking water. I'm hoping for the best. In the meantime, I'll be back at the coop this weekend making sure things are more secure. Thank goodness for forcasted temperatures in the 70's on Gap Mountain (in January!).
Chicken farmin' ain't easy.....
No comments:
Post a Comment