Early this week I lost a couple more chickens. I wish the heck we could catch that dang coyote or whatever it is..... Anyway, my chickens are all locked in their pens again. No more free ranging or fresh grass and bugs.
you have my sympathy, my chickens are similarly locked in their pens for a while (no free ranging) after losing five to a returning bobcat several weeks ago -- hoping the bobcat decides to move along soon, as the chickens are getting seriously bummed out by their captivity... (admittedly, they'd gotten horribly spoiled after a summer of me mostly working at home, so they were out almost every day for most of the day)
Before there is any sympathy elicited, I can tell you I'll never have sympathy again. I've lost birds to predator getting in, or being able to drag birds out enough to kill them. We just keep making the pens more secure and trapping when we need to.
The final iota of sympathy came when I noticed a bird dragging itself around on the ground. I picked up the bird and was horrified by what I found. The bird had obviously had one of it's legs snagged during the night and pulled to the outside of the pen, nothing else would fit through the wire. The bird had the bottom part of it's leg eaten away, what would be the thigh bone (femur), was just a bare bone, every speck of flesh was eaten away. It looked just a like a chicken bone you would leave on your plate after dinner. However this bone was still attached to a living breathing pullet.
I have no sympathy for predators going after my birds that I have done my best to protect.
Before there is any sympathy elicited, I can tell you I'll never have sympathy again. I've lost birds to predator getting in, or being able to drag birds out enough to kill them. We just keep making the pens more secure and trapping when we need to. The final iota of sympathy came when I noticed a bird dragging itself around on the ground. I picked up the bird and was horrified by what I found. The bird had obviously had one of it's legs snagged during the night and pulled to the outside of the pen, nothing else would fit through the wire. The bird had the bottom part of it's leg eaten away, what would be the thigh bone (femur), was just a bare bone, every speck of flesh was eaten away. It looked just a like a chicken bone you would leave on your plate after dinner. However this bone was still attached to a living breathing pullet. I have no sympathy for predators going after my birds that I have done my best to protect.
Granite, I thought about quartz, but it's too uniform or me. I like super veiny granite, even if it does make you have to be careful of natural cracks.
