Re: chicken terror
- To: i*@cgac.es
- Subject: Re: chicken terror
- From: J* R*
- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 08:42:22 -0800
Many years ago my former in-laws had a similiar problem when a coyote
moved into the 'upstairs' of their chicken house. They dealt with it by
putting a bowl of dog food up there every night. It worked.
Jane
>Off list-topic, I know, but I hope sympathetic chicken owners in the
>group will sympathise with my need to vent my feelings...
>
>Murder most foul took place in the hen pen this week. When I arrived on
>Monday morning all was very silent as survivors huddled together, amid
>massed feathers and butchered birds. The dead fowl, five chickens and
>one guinea hen, were neatly cached in a corner of the pen whilst the
>living paced manically amid blood splattered dirt and partially eaten
>carcasses.
>
>That night I locked some very nervous birds up in their box with a
>makeshift door. I shone the torch into the holm oak forest on the other
>side of the fence and I picked out two bright eyes which stared back,
>unblinkingly, almost challenging. Something was obviously impatient to
>revisit the pen. The stand-off continued as we just looked at each other
>without moving for a full ten minutes or so. Eventually I lugged a rock
>over the fence and clapped my hands and the eyes duly disappeared. I
>left with a great sense of guilt.
>
>The birds have now survived three nights in a row. The first no doubt
>thanks to my imposed lock-up and last two due entirely to their own
>common sense. I deliberately leave the pen open now as we obviously had
>differing opinions as to just what constitutes a safe resting place. The
>chickens while away the hours of darkness high up a juniper at the
>bottom of the garden, as far away as possible from the scene of the
>killings. I am trying to conjure up a long term solution but in the
>meantime I have little option but to allow this deadly game of hide and
>seek to continue. I do feel for those chickens though, especially at
>night. In the wild I expect that is just the way the cookie crumbles:
>Dawn for a bird is just another temporary stay of execution.
>
>Damian Martin
>Talavera, Central Spain
>(Mediterranean "dehesa" land, home to genets, polecats, wild cats and
>many other members of the chicken appreciation society).
_______________________________________________________________________
Jane Reese
E-mail: jreese@silcom.com
