Yeah that's why I love my electric one I just wish it was bigger for hanging trout and sausage. I sure like not worrying about running out of propane in the middle of a smoke tho. The Bradley's auto feed in fresh wood every 20 minutes so it's a nice fresh smoke flavor rather than the same old chips smoldering away.
The fox showed up again might before last night. While DH2B went for the gun(which for the first time in three weeks wasn't ready-we have a gun shy dog and trying to get her out the door with the gun in the porch is insane.) I took off outside in my bare feet and chased it around the barnyard and lot trying to separate it from the birds. To my amazement my presence and screaming didn't phase it at all. First I saw one of my oegb scared stiff in the driveway, as the fox ran towards us chasing a SLW hen. I moved quick and ran I'm front of her and then straight towards the fox half expecting it to run away then, still chasing the wyandotte and snapping at her tail feathers. Seeing me the slw hen ran for me and around my right side running behind me and out into the open yard where most of the flock was by then. Eyes still on the now frustrated fox I turned and scooped up the oegb and tossed her in the coop on my way by, while the fox turned and ran to the the lot in front of the coop. As we entered the lot my eyes quickly scanned for birds and I saw none. DH2B came out of the house and we were yelling back and forth. The fox was so fast and almost the size of a coyote I would say- yes I'm sure it was a fox, all I could do was continue my chase and yell to DH2B as it was so fast he never even got a look at it. The fox ran through the lot and back into the barnyard. (Which in our case is actually a big area where a barn used to stand that is overgrown with plant life and has piles of old now degraded compost in it that the flock love to dig through-clean up of the barn is still going on.) Zig zagging back and forth as it ran the fox got further in front of me and I had to slow as I got close to the barnyard duw to nails and possible broken glass in my path. Still yelling to DH2B it's location I ran out and back around as it was headed towards where I first saw it. Thinking all the birds were out of the barnyard I thought it was probably after the ones in the yard and I meant to cut it off. Hoping that DH2B would get a shot at but he couldn't see it. As I rounded the coop I heard a bird freak out and one of my buff orps flew out of the barnyard as the fox snapped at it in flight. Again I yelled and took off into the barnyard after it, this way in being safer than the other. It turned and headed back and I told DH2B it was headed for the lot. As I continued in hot pursuit it stopped and I saw it grab something though I couldn't see what bird it was at the time it looked fluffy. Yelling and redoubling my efforts to chase it I took off but it ran much faster than I and was our of the lot by the time I reached it.
We split up and got the very spooked flock in after a bit of work and looked for the fox. Amazingly we couldn't find any signs and couldn't see it even through a scope.
A head count revealed 5 missing birds! Now it may have had its mate or kits with it it all happened so fast and my eyes were locked on the big one but I could absolutely not imagine losing five! The missing birds inclided an oegb pullet- one of my favorite birds and a sq pet, golden laced sebright, EE, slw chick(10 weeks), and our silkie roo, Kramer. We searched for over two hours. We found the sebright on some machinery in another building. We were about to give up and I was devastated when out of the dark walked the EE, Olive, very terrified, she had all of her feathers on the back of her neck clipped very close to the skin. I believe she had been grabbed and I've no idea how she escaped.
We went to bed still missing three birds, but I woke up and found the slw chick and my oegb pullet, Minnie, outside the coop wanting in.
Of course the fluffy bird we lost was Kramer and it truly is a big loss he was very kind gentle and handsome roo. I believe he may have been protecting that buff hen but then couldn't get away BC of his flightlessness.
He will be sorely missed and our little silkie flock has been devastated. Losing 2 of four to predators.
We believe that this fox may not have been phased out of sheer hunger and the risk of starvation. It had been nearly two weeks since we had seen it after our great dane chased it one night but lost it. It has been three weeks since it last took one of our birds, my favorite silkie, Ginger. We have ample rabbit, chipmunks and ground squirrels around here with many field mice as well. There is no shortage of prey. We know that it will be back soon as Kramer was quite a small bird with lots of feathers and a very small amount of meat. This is almost a dozen birds we've lost during/since May.
