Chickens, dog pool, and hops

Okay, good news first. We took the dogs to the 'Drool in the Pool', which is when they open the swimming pool up to dogs the day before they drain the pool. Dia actually got in pretty deep! She hates swimming, but we took her thinking Jax may be into it. Well, Jax had a great time but never got wet. Dia was actually coaxed into jumping into the 3 foot end. She can't resist when her mom is in calling her a 'good girl'. She'd run through flames if I was on the other side calling her a 'good girl'.


Yesterday I was woken up by my neighbor calling my phone every 10 minutes. Finally I got up and answered. Turns out, he had a dead chicken in his front yard. There were spots of feathers everywhere, like a path leading from the barn, around the barn, and ending in his front yard. We examined the body. Then we embarked on solving the mystery:

Something had a chicken dinner.



Okay, so the fact that the body was in the front yard makes us wonder if it could have been coyotes. Coyotes do roam our fields, but would they go that close to the road? We're thinking it couldn't have been a raccoon because the head was still attached, and the body was really eaten up. Raccoon's 'signature' is a missing head. The spots of feathers in the yard were about two feet apiece and a few yards apart. Like something caught it, shook it, and it ran a few yards and then caught again. There were no feathers in the barn or in the chicken yard, which means it was caught outside... sometimes (okay, often) the chickens get out of the fenced in area and do whatever they want. After counting them all, we realized we were missing three... the one body, and two others were missing. The rooster, and a fat feather footed chicken.

I took Dia into the field and had her run around in there... she usually finds dead things in the field. She did not find any chicken bodies. This means if the rooster didn't run off, he was carried off. And he's a big rooster.





We're going with 'wild dog'. Although coyote is still possible. Either way, there must have been at least two of them for them to carry off two huge birds.

We've started locking the birds in the barn. They're mighty mad about it, but they'll get over it, and it'll get too cold to free range soon anyway. We're going to install an electric netting fence.

In other news, Roger harvested his hops. They're growing along the trellis in the back yard. He's hoping he got enough to try to make a batch of beer. He's never brewed before, so this will be an experiment.




Also, the dogs love each other. Love. Here's a video of them making out. This never stops.

Chicken slaughter

I've been putting off reporting this, but I suppose it's time. Our chickens were killed overnight by a predator. All of them.

I went out to the barn Christmas Eve and found 8 dead chickens strewn around the run and inside the barn. One even flew out of the run and got taken over in the field.

They had puncture wounds on their bodies, but they weren't eaten. It looked like they were grabbed on their backs, and whatever it was just held them down and ripped feathers out until they died. Feathers were everywhere, but their skin wasn't terribly torn.

When the hawk killed chickens, it ate the insides. When raccoons killed a chicken, they ripped off the head. This is... something else. We're pretty sure it wasn't wild dogs either, because none of the bodies were eaten or carried away. A cat wouldn't kill 8 birds for fun... maybe one or two.

A have a friend who studied weasels in California, and he's pretty convinced it was a weasel. He says, and google backs this up, weasels are known to kill entire chicken coops for fun. Also, all the eggs were crushed and eaten. He says a weasel would eat the eggs first, then kill the chickens.

So, for those interested in chicken predators, a quick rundown:

Hawks like to eat the crop and intestines.

Raccoons like to rip off the heads and drink the blood. (Ew.)

Dogs will carry off their prey to munch on later, or at least eat some of it.


I'm working on plans to build a coop. I'll be building one in a few weeks. I'm getting an order of baby chicks Feb. 1st... so we'll have eggs again in... 5 months or so. ::Sigh:: The new coop will be tight wire, and we'll make sure they sleep in it at night. The lean-to, even with the barn door shut, isn't tight enough to keep anything but dogs out.

I will update on the baby chick order soon.