Wednesday 21 March 2012

RIP Chook

A few weeks ago we lost one of our chickens to a fox.

We were sitting in bed reading when we heard what we thought was a flock of geese overhead, it took around a minute before I realised it was the hens making a fair bit of racket.

So we got up, got dressed and J charged out to the garden with a golf umbrella in hand (I don't know what he thought he was going to do to the poor fox with a golf umbrella??)  One of our girls  had the end of her wing nipped off. The fox could not get into the run and we were not sure how it managed to get it's muzzle through the mesh and to the chickens who would have been perching in the covered section at the time.

The other 3 chickens were unharmed.

It wasn't until the next morning that we were able to examine her under better light, the end of her wing was gone and we could see she had lost a fair bit of blood. She seemed fairly sprightly (all things considered) she was still eating and drinking. So we treated her with a wound spray but by mid-afternoon she had stopped moving around.



She didn't make it through the next night.

Her final resting place is under an apple tree, her grave is marked with daffodils (in honesty I had bought too many bulbs and I thought 'well since I've dug a big hole, I might as well make the best of it.)

We never named the chickens, and we wouldn't have been able to pick her out of the line-up... she was not a pet but she lived a good life, pecking grass with the sun on her back.



So long chook, and thanks for all the eggs!

3 comments :

  1. foxes can be nasty. i lost 2 rabbits to them. Its often the shock that kills them and i'm sure your chicken would have been suffering that too. at least the others were safe. x

    ReplyDelete
  2. We had a fox get one of our hens last week while she was free ranging. We had to stop the hens from free ranging. I miss seeing them out roaming the property.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I stopped ours free ranging too Sherri, but 6 weeks later decided that it was no life for them to be cooped up all week long, their house/run is small and I, like you, missed seeing them roam around.

      So on the days I am home they get out again.

      The sheep are lambing around here now, so at least I can be sure of (A)other pray for the fox; and (B) a farmer with a gun to get rid of the foxes that do get the lambs.

      Delete

I love getting your comments, they really make my day! I try to respond when I can.

I moderate all comments to cut out the stinky spam. So please be patient if it hasn't popped up immediately.

If you ask a question remember to check back for an answer later.

Thank-you, you wonderful peeps!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...