When we bought our home, it came with 7 chickens and 5 Pygmy goats. Several months ago, one of the chickens was killed by some unknown attacker. Then, 2 weeks ago, we awoke to find that the attacker had struck again. This time it got Ukiah's pet Araucana named "Owl" and our Bantam rooster. We rounded up the remaining chickens and put them in their house that night. This has now become a regular evening chore for Levi. That same week, just as we had returned home from prayer meeting, Drew saw an opposum in the chicken yard. He and the boys jumped out of the van and went after it. Upon careful inspection Drew discovered that it was a mama and she had a pouchful of babies! As cute as the family was, they needed to be removed from our property. She was SURELY the culprit who had been caught heading back for another chicken dinner. After spending the night in a make-shift pen made out of our wagon, the family moved several miles away to a nice, quiet place away from roads. We couldn't resist taking some pictures before she and her little ones were released.
I have seen many opossums in my life, quite a few up close and one as a childhood pet, but I have never seen babies this small. :) This was the only one that came out of the pouch but we could see other tails hanging out. It was snug in the pouch when she was released.
Since her departure, all has been quiet and peaceful in the chicken house. :)
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Disaster in the chicken house
Posted by Penny at 3:57 PM
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4 comments:
Oh wow. Thank you for sharing that picture. How cute. I got such a funny visual of your beloved and the boys trying to catch her. Was it hard? Do you think she was the one who killed Owl? I'm happy that hopefully all of your chickens are now safe. Will Levi continue to put them in their house at night even though you think you found the culprit?
It seems they are always catching something, so they have lots of practice. :) Last week it was armadillos. :)lol He said it wasn't hard...they are fairly slow. They will bite though so the boys weren't involved in handling her.
Yes, Drew thinks she was the one who did the killing. We found "evidence" all along the chicken fence AND it has been quiet ever since she left. Once they find a good meal they usually keep coming back until there is no more-that has been our experience in the past. Levi is going to continue to put them up at night because we never know when another might come along. I saw some spiritual lessons in that and the boys and I have talked about it. We have 25 chicks coming in 2 weeks so it will be good to get in the habit anyway. :)
There are so many dogs running around loose on our road, that they are the problem, not the oppossums. As a matter of fact, the neighbor's dog tried to run off with one of my Dominiques yesterday!
Oh Ann I can sympathize with you. There are a lot of loose/stray hunting dogs running here. As a matter of fact, that is how we got our puppy who is looking more and more like a hound every day.
We have 6 Dominiques coming with our chick order. I think we have 5 different breeds coming. I'll post about that soon. :) So, do they have the great personalities I have heard about? We got them because we heard they are excellent at catching horse flies.
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