Where were the puncture wounds? A fox will climb a fence and get in, and will bite on either side of the spine, to immobilize the victim. You may see up to 4 distinct puncture wounds, with two being on either side of the spine. A raccoon can also climb well. If you can't see how a dog got in - and there wasn't one there when you found the birds - it may well have been a wild animal. So sorry for your losses - it is devastating to come across a scene like this.
Danz, your system is awesome and should save you a lot of time being able to refill water bowls without having to run hoses to every individual pen.
Well, this afternoon contained a huge surprise for us. When we purchased our lambs this spring, the seller told us they were 2 ewes and 4 wethers. One wether was killed by the coyotes in June and we added a ram in July, deciding to keep the two ewes, and butcher only the 3 remaining wethers. That way we can make our own lambs next year. So a very nice sheep farmer who lives nearby, offered to pick them up for me to take them to the processor, and she came with her trailer this afternoon. We backed her trailer up to the pen, and with a little encouragement, got all 6 to load onto the trailer, then "sorted" them from the back half of the trailer, putting the wethers in the front section. We got the first two wethers up front, and were left with the three who could be identical triplets - I've never been able to tell them apart. In order to find the third wether, we had to examine their nether regions and….they are all truly identical. We checked 3 times but all three are ewes. (The lambs were completely wild when we got them and we've never been able to handle them well enough to examine them this intimately). So it was a huge surprise to us to find that we actually have a ram and 3 ewes, and only have 2 going to the processor. A relief actually, as I don't have enough freezer space for 3 anyway.
We had also agreed to purchase two more little ewe lambs from the same farmer so tonight we still have the same number of lambs, but a great ratio of 1 ram to 5 ewes. The new little lambs are really small and were only pulled from their mother this morning so they are yelling now. I'm sure it is all very scary for them, but they will settle down in a few days. The older ones have accepted them into the flock fairly well, giving them a little butt now and then to put them in their place, but nothing serious.
I had a disappointment this evening too. I've had a broody hen sitting on 4 eggs - 3 barred rocks and an exchequer egg. Well, one of the exchequers thought she might take a go at being broody too. She spent the entire day in the nest box, kicking out the broody cochin (who went and sat on a different nest). She growled at me every time I tried to check on her. Finally I decided to get the eggs out from under her to give them back to the cochin, but when I reached under her, there was an icky mess. I could only hope the broken egg was one that had just been laid today but nope, it was one of the barred rock eggs. It apparently wasn't fertile, as there was no fetus - just the yolk and white. So I had to try to clean the rest of the eggs off before putting them back under the cochin, and decided I may as well candle while I was at it, and found only one to be developing. It is one of the barred rock eggs. They are due on Fri/Sat, so now I can only hope that with the confusion today, the one hasn't quit developing and will still hatch this weekend, or the poor cochin will have sat all this time for nothing.
