At 6.30 am both of us were woken by the sound of shrill squawking! I ran to the window just in time to see the silhouette of a large fox scrabbling at the nearest of the hen houses, which happened to be the old rabbit hutch in which Blanche and her chick had been housed. It was Blanche that was making the noise and even from the cottage, I could make her out behind the chicken wire pecking frantically at the predator.Even at the ripe old age of 47, I dragged on my clothes and wellies in seconds and was running to the rescue like Sigourney Weaver out of Aliens.....it is a pity I didn't have the obligatory flamethrower and space rifle, because if I had, I would have bloody used them....but as I got to the field the fox had wisely fled the scene!
All the hen houses were intact when I checked and strangely every cockerel remained silent for a good half hour afterwards.....it was as though every bird knew that danger was about!
This afternoon I have reinforced every one of the coops. New latches have been added to doors, chicken wire has been nailed into places of potential weakness and extra heavy rocks have been placed on hinged roofs. Tonight My trusty wind up torch and clothes will be laid to hand if mr fox shows up again and I have peed ( yes peed) around the perimeter of the enclosures with the dogs tonight (getting them to leave puddles as well) in an effort to discourage foxy noses! Poor Blanche , this evening she abandoned her chick and climbed up into Rogo's ark hen house rather than returning to her small broody hutch.... I carefully removed her and the hysterical chick and put them both into another separate hutch and locked them both in safely. Both settled eventually....I wonder if I will sleep tonight?
Anyhow on a brighter note 5 of the guinea fowl have hatched this afternoon. The two more robust little chaps that put in an appearance yesterday have already been set up under the heat lamp in the shed. They look just like hen chicks but are extremely nervy and jump hysterically when approached! I think they are going to be hard work!
Hazel asked me to go to theatre Clwyd this evening to see a "groundbreaking- 14 years in the making" documentary on the artist Louise Bourgeois (she of the famous spider sculptures!) Time Out stated the film was:- "An unexpectedly lyrical and poetic portrait of the now 98-year-old, feisty, French-American artist. *****"Perhaps I am missing something..I thought it was a pretentious study of a self indulgent woman who never got over her father having an affair when she was a child! Boring!
..and I gave up having a pint with friend Geoff for this!....hey ho
In my poultry yard, it's raccoons in the middle of the night. I always keep slip-on shoes by the door, along with a flashlight and my cane. I don't need the cane to walk anymore, but it's a great weapon. Raccoons are awful, they don't just kill something to eat, they kill everything they can catch and sometimes leave it all. We can keep guns here in California, but I'm afraid I'd manage to shoot everything BUT the raccoons. I've heard about the peeing thing, but it's a bit more difficult for me to do discreetly. Hope it worked for you!
ReplyDeleteam behind in my reading so this is probably backwards, i hooked up a radio to a motion detector in the coup and it has worked at keeping critters away for many years, took it down this week, renovating and extending the coup, and had a weasel attack, hooked it back up now, it works well at night because the chickens are so still - peace
ReplyDeleteRuralrose, over on Kipper's Dickie's blog I read about how folks in Britain have to pay for a license if they play a radio or sing songs in their store. (Dumb) Do you have to have a license to play a radio for your chickens? Do you play music that chickens like, or music that predators deplore? I'm going to try this! My son has a stereo system in his game room, which used to be a chicken house, and it's right in the middle of the yard where the raccoons stroll through.
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