This morning my first thought walking out of the door was "Oh no, Oh no...." because one of my BA/EEs was standing in the yard and she had been in my locked up coop sleeping last time I had seen her. So I grabbed a flashlight and ran to the coop. The first thing I say was feathers and the hole.....
First let me say that the hole was made in a raccoon attack this summer, I had metal sheets on both sides to try to prevent another attack. But I had removed the inside sheet because it kept falling on the hens.
So back to this morning, after seeing the feathers the first thing I look at were foot prints, raccoon foot prints. Then I flew into doing a head count and counting the hen outside I got a head count of 16 hens, Chipmunk, Red, and all the extra boys. That is two hens short, next thought was "One of the barred girls (either a BR or EE/BR cross) is died and someone else is died or just hiding in the woods". I came back inside and unfortunately had to go to school.
I came home, cut some sunflower heads and started seeing which hens where around. One of the BR girls is gone, but in my really fast not that accurate count (moving chickens are hard to count) that showed about 15 outside and 2 in the coop which means if I didn't count someone twice, I have only lost one girl. I'm not sure which of the BR girls is gone though I had 2, Juliet and Dolly.
First let me say that the hole was made in a raccoon attack this summer, I had metal sheets on both sides to try to prevent another attack. But I had removed the inside sheet because it kept falling on the hens.
So back to this morning, after seeing the feathers the first thing I look at were foot prints, raccoon foot prints. Then I flew into doing a head count and counting the hen outside I got a head count of 16 hens, Chipmunk, Red, and all the extra boys. That is two hens short, next thought was "One of the barred girls (either a BR or EE/BR cross) is died and someone else is died or just hiding in the woods". I came back inside and unfortunately had to go to school.
I came home, cut some sunflower heads and started seeing which hens where around. One of the BR girls is gone, but in my really fast not that accurate count (moving chickens are hard to count) that showed about 15 outside and 2 in the coop which means if I didn't count someone twice, I have only lost one girl. I'm not sure which of the BR girls is gone though I had 2, Juliet and Dolly.
