We had friends (@tvrwolf and his wife) visiting that weekend and had been chatting excitedly about introducing them to the girls the next morning. I even warned them that being at the back of the house they would probably be woken by their indignant squawks that they were still inside ...
At 9.20am on Saturday 17th December (ironically the anniversary of my father's death in 2006) I got up and thought the girls must be out as they were all quiet, thinking our poor guests had been disturbed and been kind enough to let them out. I went to the back door and it was locked I opened it and at 09.22am my heart broke with the silence and scene that was there to greet me. I saw a pile of feathers and thought omg what on earth? (i will hasten to add we were very new to chicken keeping) as i got closer to the coop it was then i noticed the first mangled bird ..... i screamed until hubby got to me ..... we then checked and there were no others, three missing hens. We thought they had probably escaped in fear of whatever had done this. Daughter and one of our friends scoured the neighbourhood and apart from finding some feathers a little further from the house there was nothing
We went inside and i just broke down, how could this happen to us? My daughter went out to the garden and went and sat on the small wall we have which runs to the back of our house and she looked and saw a freshly dug hole, she thought it was odd and called her Dad he ordered her inside and then checked .... yes it was one of the other girls ... double tragedy. We then considered all the other places a bird could be hidden and started hunting high and low. To the rear of our garden we have raised beds and in one of these we found Chook, our black speckled neck Maran buried there. So now we have two buried birds, one mangled bird and one missing one, which we presume the predator must have eaten.
We sat and wept, our beloved chickens were gone and we felt so helpless and that we had let them down. It was then that discussion turned to foxes had done this. I have NEVER considered foxes, yes i live in a village which is near farms but i just have never seen a fox in our garden or even in the locality.
Following trawling the Internet it became apparent that foxes do once inside a hen house, kill all even if they don't eat them and that they bury the rest to retrieve at a later date. I was flabbergast, i know they call foxes wily, cunning and sly but now i fully understand why.
We have lost pets, including the 17 year old cat this year, but that has always been old age and expected. To lose these girls in such terrible circumstances has left me so upset i am not sure what we do next.
We may get chickens again at some point this year but the coop will be placed on a patio base .... to protect them. We need to mourn our loss for now and remember the funny times we had with our girls.
To anyone considering keeping chickens please please please protect your birds i would never wish this on anyone else, it has been one of the hardest things to deal with, the sleepless nights, the nightmares and most of all the guilt that we left those girls down and they died in what must have been the most scariest of circumstances.
I would like to suggest http://www.poultry.allotment.org.uk/ for any advice/chat and support in relation to chicken husbandry.
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