Once we got back from Colorful Colorado we went to the land to check those crazy chickens and only 5 were present. No feathers, no carcass, no blood. The only clue left behind were some prints and some droppings. Coyotes. We searched around the area high and low but never found any other tracks or chicken feathers. So we checked out the coop to find how the predator penetrated our chickens safe home. What?? Nothing ripped, no holes dug, nothing disturbed? It was very upsetting not being able to figure out how our chicken was taken and murdered.
Since we didn't see anything we moved the coop, set some coon traps and left them until the next evening. Luke spent some time that evening researching our predator and our poor chicken's death. We really needed to get our own coop built! It would be much safer and easier for our egg layers.
However, chicken coop plans were put on hold after Luke checked our chickens the next night. Every last chicken was ripped to shreds. This time there was no searching for carcasses or entries made to the coop, it was all very obvious. Dogs or coyotes dug their way under the coop and slaughter every last chicken and left the aftermath of chicken leftovers for us to find later.
I'll admit that at first I was very skeptical of our chickens staying alive too long, but the more time that passed the more I felt like it was actually going to work. We were warned by several people older and more experienced, that we were setting ourselves up for failure, and while we gave it our best shot, unfortunately we are down to 0 chickens.
So what have we learned from this? WHEN we try chickens again, we will wait until we can start them off in our own coop, built the way we think is best. We'll also wait until we can keep the chickens on the same land we live on!
So long, Rotisserie, Nugget, and chickens 3-6
