Good morning Friends
I think I have been on a horse once in my life when I was much younger and that might have actually been a pony I believe I have mentioned in the past, horses are beautiful but as I know very little about them, how to handle them etc, I prefer to admire from a distance.
Thank you Anniebee, I handled the bully with my usual grace and charm; I do not need to sink to her level; Karma is always lurking
Thank you RodneyRooster, that means a lot to me.
I didn’t mention this yesterday because I did not have time to tell the story and as you know, I do like to tell a story
Anyways [touch wood] I have not experienced a predator attack here but I was woken at 04:30am yesterday morning by much screeching, frantic flapping of wings in the coop .. what I can only best describe as what I would imagine having a fox, or cat etc in the coop would sound like.
As tends to be the case in these situations, flew out of bed, dressing on the way out the door just in time to see the girls all rushing down the ramp, wings still flapping, still screeching, absolute panic.
I am living my worse nightmare, adrenaline is pumping and I am so scared for their safety .. what am I dealing with here? My eyes are darting everywhere, trying to count gals, check for injuries, find the predator, how did it get in? etc etc
On opening the big door on the coop, no large predator .. hmmm, OK, look for something smaller, snake etc .. nope, nothing, zip, zilch. Spent a good 30 minutes checking absolutely everywhere and everyone.
The only ‘evidence’ was a couple of LuLu feathers on the coop floor. I have no idea what the reason was but I am thinking LuLu might have fallen off the roost, spooking everyone else; or someone jumped off the roost, landing on LuLu or something maybe landed on the coop roof, freaking them out.
If you remember, my set up has the coop in the middle with a front and back run .. breakfast is served in the front run .. even with breakfast in the front run, there was no way they were going there .. they were gathered in the far corner of the back run and not budging.
With much encouragement, I finally got them to come in the front run for breakfast at 10am .. my racing heart did not settle until well after that
I did not sleep well last night, one ear tuned in for any signs of a repeat .. nothing, all good this morning. Interestingly, for the first time in ages, no eggs were laid yesterday.
ETA: Ooops, nearly forgot .... Happy Birthday to LuLu who turns 2 today As she is hubby's chicken, I have no doubt that she will get some sort of treat when he gets home from work
They can be spooked buy just about anything the poor girls. One day i heard a hen going off outside i raced out to see what it was and i see an aussie tearing across the yard stopping and yelling some more and repeating. Finally figured out what she was spooked by... Her own shadow. She kept looking over her shoulder and going off, running and stopping and looking again.
Lulu