Found in my backyard several two legged predators, just released for the summer & looking for some action. I've been getting over bronchitis and have been sleeping on the sofa, so as to not wake hubby up with my coughing. At 2am I find myself wide awake, out of a deep medicated sleep, to find my girl Banana pecking hard at the patio door!
What is she doing out?! I know I did a head count before I locked up the coop, so the only way she could have gotten out was if SOMEONE opened up the door to the run AND the door to the coop! Since the motion sensor flood lights had been activated I quickly grabbed my son's pellet handgun and race out into the night. What do I see? Two teen boys trying to toss my chickens out of their coop & run!
"Hello, boys, what do we have here?" I ask nicely to them, to which they drop Mango (whose feathers I see are all over the coop!) They turn around slowly at me, grins fading away to fright when they see the pellet handgun pointed straight at them. I didn't threaten to shoot them or harm them in any way, but I did tell them that I would now be installing a game camera, so if they or any of their friends decide to come onto my property and harass my chickens, I would have evidence to show the police (who take everything seriously in my town) and their parents. I made them get off my property and then proceeded to round up all of the chickens in the yard. I see now I should have made them do that instead! Now, it looks like I need to buy some padlocks to install on the doors of the run & coop. But it is now almost 4am and rounding up frightened chickens in the middle of the night is time consuming when they refuse to go back into their coop...
....now they're all back in and I'm wide awake...time to make some coffee and ponder if I should have just shot those two teens in the rear as a warning...lol...
