Outfoxed

A few weeks ago I was on my way home in the early afternoon, when I got a phone call from Mr. Fabulous telling me that we were missing a chicken. All winter we have been letting them free range during the day, being careful to have them back in the coop well before sundown. The previous week we lost a duck, and now this chicken.

The next day Mr. Fabulous took my car to run a few errands, and I decided to take a nap. When I woke up, I looked at the clock and it was about 2:30, so I thought I would go and make sure the chickens were safe before 3:00, when suddenly I heard a commotion outside - it was definitely the call of a chicken in distress. I looked out the window, and in the middle of our shoveled path in the snow was a FOX!! My big chicken was valiantly fighting for her life, and I ran down the stairs and outside, all the while the fox 100% focused on the hunt and 0% aware of my presence. I, of course, had neglected to put shoes on, so I stood on the front porch and shouted, "HEY!! LET  GO OF MY CHICKEN!!" The fox looked at me, and reluctantly obliged. The chicken seized her opportunity for freedom and ran towards me, then past me and hid in a old tarp. The fox looked at me as if to say, "Ok, you can have her this time." And then sauntered away.

I went back inside to put shoes on, then assessed that the rest of our birds were still alive and well, then found my poor injured bird. She was missing all of her tail feathers, and bleeding a little on her back from where they had been violently ripped out, but other than that she seemed in good shape. We cleaned her up and sprayed some chicken first aid spray we had on her cut, and then put her in her own coop with a heat lamp, figuring without feathers she'd have a hard time staying warm, and also not wanting the other chickens to attack her.

The fox, however, was also free and healthy. And thought she knew where her next meal was coming from. That night, with all birds safe and sound, the fox returned to find her injured prey, but came up empty handed. The next day we left all the birds locked in their coop, and I pulled in the driveway to see the fox sitting patiently next to our shed, waiting to see if any birds were going to walk down the shoveled path today. Again, when she saw me, she trotted away, but not with any real sense of urgency.

In the following weeks, we have kept our birds locked up (they are not happy about this) and we have managed to keep all of them alive. The poor bald chicken is growing her feathers back and still laying eggs. And the fox is definitely still patrolling outside - not quite as often, but she's there.

Since then whenever I tell this story, I have been given all kinds of suggestions for getting rid of this fox (it should be noted at this point that I always refer to the fox as "she" but I have no real proof of gender). This is obviously a large and well-fed fox, so the ideas have ranged from shooting it, to feeding it, and everything in between. It was suggested that I play music in the coop, also to hang cd's from branches, and potentially that the fox is my spirit animal and maybe that's why I can't get rid of it. Turns out my spirit animal is a raven, according to a quiz I took online, so clearly that's not the answer.

As it warms up outside, I'm sure my birds are going to be harder to contain, so hopefully we will have good means for protecting them, or maybe the fox will find another yard full of delicious treats.

Meet Alfonse

After the death of her good friend, Babs, Gert seemed quite forlorn. We set about finding a new friend for her, but the lady I got them from only had boys to give away, and since it's fall, the nearest hens (of any breed) were at least two hours away, and more money than I wanted to spend. So, it was a little trepidation, that we accepted the rooster and prayed he would be good company for darling Gertrude. I chose the tamest of the three I had to choose from, and the most pretty. Here he is riding in my car on the way home:

He was pretty good in the car, other than this moment when we first got in, he stayed in his tub and did some minimal chatting on the way home. I felt like we bonded.

Upon arriving home, I carried him to the yard, and set him down. He started doing a little squawking, the kind of "locator cry" I've come to expect from them, and Gert came running over. They grazed a bit side by side, and I thought it was love at first sight. But then Gertrude turned to face him, puffed up her feathers, and attacked the poor, unsuspecting rooster.

... and then he ran away.

It was a pretty rough first day for Alfonse. Gertie was not too sure she wanted a boy in her midst, the dogs barked at him and he ran into the woods. But he kept coming back, and made himself at home on our porch and attempted to roost on our grill. Given evidence of the giant owl in our neighborhood, we opted to keep him safe and put him in his coop.

Soon enough, they will be fast friends, and we'll have to work on getting a couple more hens to keep Gertie company!

A Morning Emergency

Yesterday morning I was awakened by a chorus of screeching crows. Sure, they were probably just "cah-ing", but at 5:00 in the morning it was not appreciated. It was only a few minutes after John had left for the day, so I couldn't imagine what was going on out there. I tried to ignore it, but finally I got up and looked out the window to see what was amiss. And there was a fox circling my chicken coop!! The poor girlies inside were clucking away and trying to fly, but of course were locked in. The fox was running around, trying to find a hole in our fence and a way in to our chickens. We don't own any guns, but usually we have some firecrackers around or something loud that would scare the fox away (because my husband really enjoys things that go boom).

Not wanting to waste time, I threw on my shoes and opened the front door. The fox looked at me, and kept looking for a way inside the coop. So I took a few steps outside, and the fox ran away. Which is a real good thing, because though I had put shoes on, I had neglected to put pants on. Beyond running outside in my underwear, I had no real plan for getting rid of this fox. Luckily, it has not been back since, but we're always on the lookout and no longer leave them running around when we're not home. Call us overprotective, but we just love them. And they love John (they're warming up to me).

The Chickens are Home to Roost!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Barbara and Gertrude:

We call them Babs and Gert. Though sometimes I like to call Gertrude "Trudy". They're super friendly, they eat lots of bugs, and they lay eggs. It's a total win situation for us! On top of that, they're effing adorable and totally hilarious. They are show chicken flunkies, so they are obviously the perfect chickens for us.

Like all women, they love the hubs more than they love me. It's possible I traumatized them a smidge; they had to ride in my car (including a trip to get some coffee in a drive-thru and a few stares at the chickens in my back seat from our friendly baristas).  I took my sister home and wanted to show them off to my family,  then when I tried to walk them into the house sitting in the rubbermaid bin they came in, first Gertrude flew out, and when I was catching her, I lost Barbara! They are fast, man! Luckily my brother was willing to help his sister out, brought out some fishing twine in an effort to net her, but she took off into some underbrush. Meanwhile, my sister Mary was trying to show Gertrude off to my dad, but the dog barked and she flew off again! My uncle lured her out with a slice of bread, so they were able to catch Gertrude, but Barbara was still on the lamb. Turns out her weakness is also white bread, and after my entire family came out to help, I was finally able to pick her up and get her back in the car. It was quite the adventure, and naturally include multiple members of my family. It does, however, explain a little bit why they don't want to be around me so much.

Currently their "coop" used to be Bandit's doghouse. He never actually used it, because he prefers my couch and despises being outside without me, so we added a second story and put their house up on blocks. It's how we roll. Other than purchasing the chicken wire (who knows why hubs only bought it 3' tall), the rest of their current coop was built with stuff we had lying around, I think they did a pretty good job:

We'll upgrade eventually, especially if we get more chickens. We'll see how we do with this dynamic duo first.