Crying Over Chickens

I've seen bobcat tracks in the snow around the chicken pen and, even after the snow was washed away, Kersey was sniffing around the perimeter in the mornings.  We were feeling kind of smug about it; our chickens safe inside and the bobcat pacing outside.

Until this morning.  We found one dead chicken and the carcass of another.  Picked clean.

I looked in the hen house and the two remaining hens were sitting on the highest rung of their roosting ladder.  Our beautiful black Andalusian rooster, Lord Byron, was a few rungs down, severely wounded.  I don't know if he will make it.  Calvin, the other rooster, was making quiet clucking noises from his perch on the nesting boxes.  When I opened the door, he went out into the run, spread his wings and crowed for all he was worth.

The two hens that were killed were favorites: Dixie Chick and my last Cuckoo Maran.  Plus the wounded rooster, Lord Byron, who is so beautiful and sweet.

I am certain it was the bobcat.  Brett has wire panels covering the sides and the top of pen, and chicken wire going partway up the sides.  The panels on the side have very small openings; four inches square.  On the top, the new panels are also 4" square but there are some older panels with larger openings, 4" x 6".  I think the bobcat climbed the side and squeezed through one of those larger openings.  It took him a few weeks to find a way in, but he was ultimately successful.

I moved the water bowl into the hen house and waited for Calvin to go back inside.  It took awhile, he wandered around in the rain for quite awhile before a thunderclap and heavy downpour drove him back inside.  Dixie Chick and the Cuckoo Maran were his hens.  I closed the door to the hen house, and the little pop-up door as well.

I don't cry often or easily, but I found myself fighting - and then giving in - to tears.  We have worked so hard to keep our chickens safe and I feel like we failed them.  Brett feels badly about the larger openings on the top panels; but we both agreed, at the time he installed them, that no animal could get through.

Between the loss of the tree and the loss of the chickens, its been a sad week at Oak Creek Ranch.

From Thirteen to Four

Four hens -- that's all we have left.  Out of our flock of 13 hens and two roosters, we now have four hens and two roosters.

One of the victims. 

We lost some of them to some mystery disease or the cold; but not all of them.  Some of the chickens became lethargic and, after a few days, they died.  Some of them had bloody necks and you may remember that I found drops of blood on Calvin's comb a few times -- and accused him of playing a part in the hens' death.  It seems he did play a part; but not the one I thought.

He was trying to protect the hens, is my guess.

Today was very cold.  Last night we had a hard frost (temperatures below 28F for more than five hours).  This morning, the frost was so thick that it looked like snow.  I used a big piece of wood to smash the ice that had formed on the horses' water troughs.  We did the chores quickly and then scurried back into the warmth of the house.

I spent the afternoon baking Christmas cookies.  My kitchen window looks out over my garden, to the chicken area, and the dressage court further out.  As I was baking, I heard the chickens squawking and looked out the window.  I called to Brett, who was watching football and eating peanut butter toast, in the other room.

"I think the chicken who was ailing must have died.  The rest of the chickens are huddled in the corner, squawking like mad -- just like they did when the first chicken died."

Brett went out and, sure enough, the chicken was dead.  But she wasn't in the hen house, in the corner where she has huddled for the past week.  She was laying outside, and her neck was bloody.  We hoped that the other chickens hadn't pecked her much; since if the chickens are getting sick, we don't know if it is contagious.

I continued with my cookies. Brett continued with his football.  Kersey slept by the wood-stove on her bed.

Not even an hour later, I heard more squawking.  Looking up I could see grey furry ears and chickens flying around their area.  I slipped on my clogs and went out the door.  There was a bobcat in the chicken area, and it had one of the chickens.  When it saw me in the garden, it turned and went up and over the fence -- by the gate, where it isn't covered.  I came back inside the house and got Brett.

Meanwhile, the bobcat jumped back into the chicken area and went back to the chicken it was planning on having for dinner.  It gave me a dirty look as it climbed back out and walked towards the girls' pasture.  It wasn't a large bobcat; about as tall as Kersey.  It looked like a large domestic cat; with a bobbed tail, spots, and very long legs.  Just past the bridge, it paused and looked over its shoulder at me.  Brett came around the corner, by the hen house, with his gun.  The bobcat took one look, and disappeared into the pasture, and then under the fence into the blackberry bushes.

The chicken was almost dead - we thought it was dead at first.  Brett killed it and then removed it from the area.  It had the same bloody neck that two of the other chickens have had.  So, it seems that Calvin has been attacking the bobcat and running it off.  Maybe he's a good rooster after all.

Meanwhile, the remaining chickens are closed up in the hen house.  Brett has his thinking hat on; the one that figures out the details of projects on the property.  We will replace the flock in the spring, but need a way to cover the chicken area completely and keep them safe.  Three quarters of the run is covered now, leaving the area right around the oak tree open.  Clearly, that needs to be covered somehow as well.

I have to admit that despite being a very self-sufficient girl, who isn't overly sentimental, and isn't in the least bit girly --- my heart went all fluttery watching Brett stalk that bobcat.  After he took care of the second dead chicken, and put his gun away, I gave him a hug.  "What was that about?" he asked.

"You were so manly out there." I said.

Words cannot express how much I love this man.

All photos by Steve Neely