If you ever visit my studio, you will hear the clucking of chickens. The studio is a renovated barn, with our chickens in the lower level. I love the sound of them while I work. But yesterday the gentle clucking became frantic squawking and crashing around. I quickly cleaned the clay off my hands, and rushed down to find chickens frozen with fear staring at one spot, I looked at that area and found a puddle of fresh blood, and a little further away… the inside part of a chicken (I’ll try keep this rated G)… and a little further away a dead chicken. I won’t say anymore about the details.
I couldn’t figure out what got in, because our coop is like a fortress. I observed the chickens, and noticed they would not go near one spot in the coop, and they kept staring at it. It was a hole between the wood floor and the bricks. Ah… I thought… must have been a fisher cat! I know that fisher cats and raccoons take the insides of chickens and leave them to die, but the hole seemed too small for either of those. Terri later did some research online which gave us our answer… a weasel!!! Yup that would be about right, we thought we saw a ferret like animal in the yard this summer!
So we are down to nine chickens, losing a beautiful Buff Orpington, one of our favorites! We plugged up the hole, with hopes it doesn’t get in again somewhere else.
Here is a photo of one of our Buffs from the summer, and a photo of the gifts our chickens give us daily!
I’m sorry about your loss. I have a friend that kept chickens and it was always hard when one was killed (they never seem to die of old age). I’ve been thinking lately about getting a few chickens but these stories make me wonder if I’m really prepared to do that.
Thanks… it is sad sometimes, but the good definitely outweighs the bad. I have a couple of farmer friends who raise sheep, (check out Getting Stiched on the farm, on my sidebar) and another who is a cheesemaker with the goats they raise. They always have difficult loses, but as they say it’s just a part of it.
Oh Lucy – sorry. I’ve had weasels. I actually found one that my cats killed – it was white. I found it and took it to the vet (because we were going anyway) and they didn’t know what it was. But I figured it out. They are rather small but nasty.
Hope you are well – and busy with throwing pots, etc. Hope to see you soon,
Kristin, Mark and Julia
Ooh it killed your cat?!!! That’s awful.
Did you know that weasels turn white in the winter!
Hope to see you soon.