I let my chickens free range in our yard while I was planting some herbs, etc. Our young kitten, who was perfectly docile with the chickens four days ago, has apparently grown into her natural predatory instincts. I deterred her a couple of times from our bantam (she didn't go after the two full size hens). After I finished planting I picked up the two docile standard hens and put them back in the coop/run. All of a sudden the kitten took off after my bantam!! So here we go, kitten chasing chicken, me chasing kitten around the coop. Needless to say, they were both much faster than me. The kitten chased the bantam back behind the coop and I was afraid she was trapped. Whoosh! She flew up to the roof of the coop. Well, I caught the kitten and put her in the house, but I still had my chicken on the roof of my coop where she could easily fly over the fence to the alley. If she got over there I would never catch her. She checked out the situation and decided to slide down the slanted side of the coop roof. Even with the upset she still wasn't ready to go in the coop. She's way too skittish and fast for me to catch and put in like I did the other two hens. So, I tried to lure her in with scratch. No go. The stuff in the yard was more interesting. After chasing her around with a big pot hoping to plop it over her and scoop her up, I decided to wait her out. Finally, she started strutting around in front of the door, but every time I opened it she would run away and the other hen would try to get out. It finally dawned on me to put the other hen in the coop and shut the coop door. Then I opened the door to the run wide open and stepped away. At last my runaway hen came back inside the run. Also, today I got to witness my third hen eating a garden snake.
