Carnage

Monday night was a bad time. The chickens come home to roost as the daylight fades. Prior to that collecting them is like, well, like herding chickens. They hate to come to bed before it's dark.

But Monday night, there was a serial killer roaming the property...

We're not sure if it was a fox, or a fisher. We didn't see the perpetrator... we, like CSI, arrived after the fact.

Piles of feathers were the first ominous clue, as Nancy walked up in the late evening to close up the stable. Now, it is not unknown for us to lose chickens to predators: over the years, we've had a hawk lift a few. We had a fox one year who was taking them like vitamins, one a day. We had a fisher who only failed in his murderous mission because David came round the corner at an opportune time. Raccoons have taken their toll. Not to mention cars speeding by, oblivious to the scientific research being undertaken by chickens to answer the age old question, Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

There is an expectation, when chickens range so happily and so freely that there will be predators. We do our best to keep the girls safe, but sometimes Nature simply happens. Foxes and fishers and weasels and hawks... everybody needs to eat. We get that. But sometimes, it's just not fair.

The worst was the night a weasel broke into the old henhouse. He killed seven. Weasels simply kill... all those tales that the predators never kill more than they can eat? Not so much. Weasels just keep on killing as long as they can. That was a bad moment in Chicken-dom. What made it so upsetting was that the coop is supposed to be a safe place, predator-proof, and evidently we had failed in that mission. The weasel was able to pry loose some wire and get in while the chickens were asleep.

Monday night was far worse. On their way home for the night, still not close to their safe coop, thirteen chickens were slaughtered and left lying on the property. Well, ten were left. Three were taken away, no doubt to be dinner. But we found the rest. It was a slaughter of the innocents, and it was heartbreaking. The killer simply killed, and killed, and killed...

So our flock has been tragically reduced for the time being. We are all on extremely high predator alert... We are bribing, herding and harrassing the chickens into safe harbour long before the sunlight fades. If it is a fisher, it will move back into the forest -- we rarely get them on our lawns. If it is a fox, especially a fox with a nearby den, we will need to take more permanent measures to keep the girls safe.

In the meantime, we must sadly report this catastrophe, because life is not always sunshine and sweetness. Sometimes the bad things happen.

For all her fans, however, who know and love the almost five year old BIG chicken we call Greenback (because she spent her first summer covered in green paint after helping paint some lawnchairs)... well, she made it through. She's fine. We're glad about that!