Our hens were locked up safe in their coop when we stopped at the house Saturday evening and all 7 were dead the next day. The culprit (likely a raccoon) broke through two layers of fence to get into the main coop, making a hole the size of a dinner plate.
I'm so thankful I spotted the problem and hubby was home to clean up the mess before the kids saw anything from the backyard. A weekday morning we might not have been so fortunate. The kids are having a hard enough time with the fact the chickens are gone without having the mental image of the coop.
I know they are just farm animals, but I miss the rhythm and routine they added to our days... getting eggs in the morning, letting them out after lunch, locking them up at dusk, talking about them with the kids during the day. I'm sure we'll have chickens again, likely not until spring through unless we find someone local with more chickens than they need. Of course hubby has already been discussing improvements to our coop set-up in hopes of doing better at keeping predators out -- though we have been pretty lucky before now, only loosing a few hens over the last 2.5 years.
But for now, good-bye to our chicken adventure on the gravelly road :(
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