Sometimes the best of intentions just end badly.
This morning I let one of my chicken flocks out for a little grass. The ten hens and two roosters in question live in a 6x8 house with an 8x24 foot fully fence run. Of course, anyone who owns chickens knows that in short order a flock of chickens no matter the age with completely render a piece of ground to look like the surface of the moon - devoid of all life and containing huge craters.
Anyhow, it's not unusual for me to let out a flock during the day - I'd had the other large flock out just days before. So about 10am I went out and opened the pen door. Excited chickens bounded out and I went about my business. With two roosters on guard and a llama roaming through the pen I seldom stick with the chickens but opt to let them do their chicken business.
Today that was a big mistake.
About 30 minutes after I let them out it began to rain. I looked out and the roosters and ladies had retreated to under a couple of big trees and continued to scratch around and eat.
The rain lasted over an hour and when it quit I looked out and the chickens were fine. I sat down to finish reading a post on one of my favorite website. Ten minutes later I heard a commotion coming from the poultry yard, but being that it was the time of day that the girls would be laying I ignored it for the first few minutes. When it continued I looked out and saw a puff of white feathers and my white Orpington laying there. That's when I saw Prince, our seven year old llama in pursuit of a large red fox that was running off with a New Hampshire hen. I ran to the back room and grabbed up our air rifle, stuffed a pellet in and got out the front door in time to get a shot on him. I hit him, he dropped the chicken and took off running. Of course, miss chicken was dead. I ran to the poultry yard and found nothing but bodies. Not a chicken to be found that was still alive.
I went inside to call my husband. We'd talked about getting a "real" gun for some time and that time was now. After I got off the phone I looked out the front windows to see Mr. Fox coming back down the driveway. Apparently, the air rifle pellet was not the deterrent I had hoped for. As I opened the front door it heard me and took off.
After that I went outside to look over the other flocks and make sure that everyone else was okay. On the way out I heard crowing from the back fence line, far from the pens, and discovered that my big Delaware rooster was a little battered but alive. While trying to catch him I also discovered a Red Star hen hiding in the brush. I caught the two of them and put them back in the pen.
As I went around picking up carcasses and throwing them on the burn pile I nearly stepped on a New Hampshire hen that was hunkered down in the grass. She too went back to the pen.
So in all I managed to find three chickens. In the three years I've raised poultry here we had never seen a fox, much less in the middle of the day. When added to the weasel that killed 65 chicks last month and earlier troubles with raccoons, not only are we investing in a gun, but I'm going to seriously being investigating adding an LGD, or Livestock Guardian Dog, to our farm.
From the last time I had looked outside to the moment I entered the yard and found them all (nearly) dead, only fifteen minutes had passed. Not only are fox sneaky, they are unpredictable and FAST! Poultry owners beware!
Until next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment