The chicken who lived
We’ve actually had terrific luck with predators. It may sound strange to say since we’ve lost several birds, but it’s true. The eagle took our oldest sickest chicken and spared us from having to either watch her slowly die or cull her ourselves. The spring fox attack took only non-layers. Recently we’ve even had some helpful predator emptying our rat traps for us and a resident barred owl who has taken up a nightly post around our (luckily covered) coop and is doing well with rodent removal duties on his own.
Then there was the incident of the chicken who lived. We had just recently gotten two hens and a rooster (more on him later) and while the rooster had gone on to greener pastures, the girls had become our best layers. All three were originally kept in a quarantine coop under the stairs and were, therefore, promptly given Harry Potter names.
My mum and I had been running errands and came home to find the guys waiting for us in the yard. Perched on his dad’s shoulders, the lad called out, “We just saw a fox and Dadda tried to stop it and it took one of our chickens.”
This was one of the first times the girls had free-ranged since the previous fox attack.
I sighed. “Ok, which one.”
M made a face, “Hedwig.”
Of course, she laid one egg a day without fail and was our only true Easter Egger.
I tried to round up the rest of the chickens who were hiding in the underbrush near the woods in true chicken certainty that the fox could not possibly find them there. They would not budge. The only exception was the last of our Harry Potter chickens who was hiding under the hammock looking truly bereft.
After fifteen frustrating minutes, I stormed to the edge of the woods where we were pretty sure the vixen had her den.
Hands on my hips, I hollered, “That’s it fox. This is war. You took our best layer; now I’m coming for you.” (I really did this. The neighbors just love having me next door, I’m sure.)
I marched back inside and started furiously cleaning. We don’t have a gun in the house and we don’t own a live trap or any other device that would allow me to make good on my threat. To the fox. I began to feel quite foolish as I furiously scrubbed the dishes. Less than a year with chickens and I was shouting empty threats into the wilderness. This was probably not going to end well.
M stuck his head in, “ Hun, how many chickens do we have?”
I snorted, “I guess we’re down to four.”
“How many chickens did we have?”
I stopped scrubbing and looked at him, wondering why he’d suddenly lost the power of basic arithmetic. Clearly homesteading wasn’t good for either of our mental wellbeing.
“…Five…”
He shook his head in disbelief. “There are five chickens out there.”
I threw my boots back on and ran out. There was Hedwig, shaking off loose feathers, strutting around the middle of the yard as the other hens ran out of their hiding places to flock to her. We picked her up and looked her over, unable to find so much as a mark. She even went right back to laying the next day. The only change in her was a definite uptick in her pecking order and an almost reckless bravery when she free ranged.
As for me, I don’t go around yelling into the woods anymore. I will confess that after I got the girls safely back to the coop that day, I stood by the edge of the wood again and quietly said, “Thank you. We’re good. For now.”