kklowell
Songster
Lately we have been letting the girls out for a few hours i evening while we are home and working outside. Today, however, I let them out when we got home about 4 pm. Then we went to the store and to deliver some eggs and were gone 60-90 minutes. When we got home again we saw none of the girls in the yard and it was eerily quiet. Henry, my not-so-friendly rooster wasn't crowing, which he always does.
I decided I should walk out and see if they'd gone in the coop so I headed that way...only to discover a pile of feathers about 30 feet from it. Then we saw more. I practically ran to the coop at that point and discovered that there was three birds in it, but the other eight were not to be seen.
We started walking down the small dirt road that services my neighbors down by the lake when we encountered one of the neighbors walking up the hill. He asked if we were looking for chickens and when we said yes, he told us that they saw a large red fox with one in its mouth, which it dropped when they drove up. He told us that he put the hen out of her misery. I thanked him for that.
My rooster, Henry, was in the coop as one of the three birds I saw in there. I din't even recognize him because he was being so quiet and he is missing his tail feathers. We were surprised to see him because there are feathers from him in the front, side and back yards! He must have put up a heck of a fight!
I found a body about 100 feet from the coop, and two more piles of feathers, but I don't know if all of the still-missing birds are dead and gone. Three have since come home, but it got dark so I won't know until morning if any of the others survived and hid out overnight. I'm obviously hoping that at least some of them did that, and I'm hoping that Henry and a hen that was also injured recover.
These are the first birds we've lost. Prior to this we have had no issues with them that weren't expected, so this came as a real shock.
I decided I should walk out and see if they'd gone in the coop so I headed that way...only to discover a pile of feathers about 30 feet from it. Then we saw more. I practically ran to the coop at that point and discovered that there was three birds in it, but the other eight were not to be seen.
We started walking down the small dirt road that services my neighbors down by the lake when we encountered one of the neighbors walking up the hill. He asked if we were looking for chickens and when we said yes, he told us that they saw a large red fox with one in its mouth, which it dropped when they drove up. He told us that he put the hen out of her misery. I thanked him for that.
My rooster, Henry, was in the coop as one of the three birds I saw in there. I din't even recognize him because he was being so quiet and he is missing his tail feathers. We were surprised to see him because there are feathers from him in the front, side and back yards! He must have put up a heck of a fight!
I found a body about 100 feet from the coop, and two more piles of feathers, but I don't know if all of the still-missing birds are dead and gone. Three have since come home, but it got dark so I won't know until morning if any of the others survived and hid out overnight. I'm obviously hoping that at least some of them did that, and I'm hoping that Henry and a hen that was also injured recover.
These are the first birds we've lost. Prior to this we have had no issues with them that weren't expected, so this came as a real shock.
Are you going to declare war on the fox?
happy that some of the missing ones came back and hopefully more survivors will return to you as well! It’s difficult not knowing!
