M.A.S.H. unit

[MickeysChicks]

Necessity is the mother of invention! One of my RedComets had a run in with a Hawk. Unfortunetly we had no place to isolate her! So we stashed her in the Garden shed while we got creative! My husband had some parts left from an old tent/awning that was used for a carport. We had a tarp that was used as a wind break for our pool deck. Viola! A custom made M.A.S.H. tent ! One wall is the long side of the chicken run, so she can still socialize with her flock, but they can't get to her. We made a gate/door to give us access to her and it's also on the sunnyside of the coop so she hangs out there in the mornings to get some warm suntime. She has a nesting box, food and water, and a ladder for a perch. The area in the tent is actually as large as the whole coop and fenced in run the rest of the flock shares! We've named the injured Red, Lala, and she seems to be thriving all things considered. She's becoming rather spoiled! We've been giving her the appropriate medicines and a friend recommended giving her a meal of scrambled eggs for the extra protien to help with healing. She is loving the extra attention! The rest of the girls I think are a little jealous!


The finished M.A.S.H. tent

Gertrude supervising the building, she's also rather protective of Lala.

A jealous leghorn! Mooching treats!

 

[scratch'n'peck]

I hope Lala gets better quickly. I had a hen who made a miraculous recovery from a hawk attack. It is nice that she can socialize with the flock while healing. I hope you don't have any raccoons wandering in you area. If so double check the MASH unit, because raccoons are good diggers and can gnaw through stuff easily.

 

[MickeysChicks]

No sign of raccoons, and we haven't seen the hawk in over a week, BUT NOW..........a coyote attacked right at dusk yesterday!!!!! AAGGGHHHHHH!!!! At first when we tried to do a head count we thought we had lost half the flock. But this morning things looked a little better. Lost another Red and a Leghorn. We thought we had lost Lala in the M.A.S.H. tent, but this morning we realized she was perfectly fine, she had taken cover under the excess tarp in the corner of the tent, this morning she was at the tent door raising heck because her water bucket had frozen over!Luckily the M.A.S.H. tent has a fence all the way around it and it's close enough to the tent walls that there's no room to jump over it! A leghorn is missing feathers and skin from her backside so now she's in the M.A.S.H. unit(we found her up in a tree this morning) and we found another leghorn this morning holed up under the deck, no visible signs of blood, but she's limping, so officially we are down to 4 reds and 5 leghorns.....the girls are now not allowed to free range and we're walking around the yard with rifles.....time for some target practice! The neighbors kids saw the coyote, it was going after their dog apparently for desert after having a chicken dinner. We've warned the neighborhood that we will be shooting if we see it and we can take a clean shot. I know dealing with predators is just part of raising backyard chickens......but this has just majorly broken my heart and got me all riled up at the same time!

We have a neighbor down the hill who has a much bigger piece of property, they have horses on their land. They are looking for the coyote too, that coyote has a huge bullseye on it!

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Oh I'm sorry for the losses. I hate predator issues. I hope you all get that coyote.