It's been a Day. Or a couple of Days. Too busy for words and kind of rough in several ways.
Tonight was no exception. When I got home tonight I saw that the donkeys had broken the H brace on the east fence. So I came in and changed out of my office clothes into my real work clothes, and my son and I went out to try to rig it up to be more secure until we can fully repair that area.
All the livestock were in the barnyard, so we shut that gate to make it easier on ourselves. We went to the damaged fence area, stretched and pulled and rigged it up where it's more stable, and braced one of the posts from the outside for now. Then, since we seem to be having a really low egg production lately, we walked the pasture looking for any hidden pockets that hens may be laying eggs in.
That's when we saw her. Or what was left of her. A couple of nights ago the coyotes were thick and the dogs were going berserk sometime around 1:00 a.m. The donkeys bed down in the barnyard right next to the goats and chicken coop. There is one breed of hen that we have though, of which we had 4, that are really adventurous chickens. We found the remains of our only black and white amerecauna hen - just the wings and the breastbone.
It's inevitable, I know, that no matter how well protected your chickens are there will come a time that a predator will get one. This adventurous amerecauna proved too adventurous for her own good. And now that I've gotten this far, I'm not quite sure how to wrap this post up.
At least fall is coming on, and the hens *should* want to stick closer to the coop and each other for warmth.
Well, at least they didn't get all the chickens. And even predators need to eat. :)
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, that's about how I see it. The hard part for me is that she was a productive hen. And coyotes aren't like dogs who will hunt for fun. They hunt to eat - that means they take a bird and move away. Hopefully though, the other adventure chickens don't fall to the same fate. They are some of my best hens. The non-productive hens - well, we're going to have a culling day soon and stew down a lot of the older gals leaving the still productve and the younger hens coming into productivity to take over the egg duties.
ReplyDeleteYou know... in the path of your comment, I have a friend who tosses the carcasses over the fence to the coyotes when she culls her flock. We do still need our predators. Just as long as we keep a healthy balance, right?
But won't that encourage the coyotes to come back? I'm sure you and your friends know best, but it just seems like it would be an invitaion to another chicken dinner. I hope you don't lose any more.
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