It's just 5 days before Christmas so Joe and I had a pretty laid back Sunday planned. We slept in, caught up on my fav TV show "Nashville" and then tuned into the Pats game. When we took the dogs out this morning we noticed that 2 of our hens had escaped! We stopped letting them free range completely when we got the new chickens in October, and now we keep them confined to a run that we added onto the existing coop. The run is just some chicken wire held up with metal posts and has a tarp for a roof, but it's meant to give them more room than just the coop to roam while still keeping them safe and warm for the winter. Every night we peel back a corner of the tarp and shut the coop door with the ladies safely inside. The runner is somewhat safe, but with no floor a predator could dig into it pretty easily so they sleep in the coop. Yesterday morning we noticed an entire wall of the run had been pushed in and a big hole was dug right in front of the coop door. Nothing had gotten in, because we have a buried wall of bricks 1 foot deep all the way around the coop...but we knew we had a problem. We (by we I mean Joe with absolutely no help from me) re-built the run and reinforced the walls with extra ties to the posts to keep everything nice and tight.
Needless to say, when we saw that two hens had escaped this morning we were pretty surprised. Joe picked them up, put them back in their runner and we looked the whole runner over to try to figure out how they got out. We couldn't see any weak spots or gaps so we left them in there and went about our day. During the football game when we saw the chickens were out again we were like, screw it we'll just let them roam around the yard and tuck them into the coop later.
My friend came over so we could half watch the game and half bake Christmas cookies. We were sitting in the kitchen talking and making my fav peanut butter cookies when she said, "Aw, there's a cute neighborhood dog in your yard...uh oh he's near a chicken...OH SHIT THAT'S A FOX! THAT FOX IS EATING YOUR CHICKEN!" In broad daylight nonetheless! (Normally we only worry about them at night since most predators, including foxes, are nocturnal.) Joe kicked into protector mode and went charging out into the yard. The fox ran off, but the damage had been done. Thankfully two of the chickens that aren't escape artists were still peacefully in the coop unharmed, but the other two were not so lucky. When Joe went charging outside, the fox left the chicken he had in his grasp but we could see that he had already gotten one of the hens and he retrieved her body as he left. Our other hen was pretty badly injured, but alive. We couldn't see any blood and her neck was clearly intact so Joe picked her up gently and took her back to the coop...but she hasn't shut her mouth so we think her jaw is broken and she might be dead in the morning :(
Meanwhile, during this whole ordeal the fox never went far and we kept seeing him wandering the outskirts of the yard. I know he will try to break into the coop again tonight, and even thought I doubt he will get in it's a very stressful situation for the hens. When we found the hole he made 2 nights ago we found all their eggs smashed in the coop no doubt because they were panicking and fluttering around in the coop while a predator was trying to get into their house. We have a motion sensor light out there meant to deter coyotes but evidently it doesn't work on foxes...
Being a chicken owner is definitely not for the faint of heart! This is the 5th and maybe 6th hens we have lost to predators in 6 months. Hopefully we can keep the rest safe through the winter, and maybe in the spring we will have to build a giant fortress around the coop to keep the ladies in and the bad guys out.
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