While I was cursing my stupidity for icing my hydrant into a miniglacier, I fed the chickens. Our chickens are pretty good about “coming home to roost” every evening. (With the exception of Fluffy and her small band of Resistance Chickens. They stay outdoors 24/7 and clearly intend to live free or die trying. I grok that!)
I’d let the laying flock out of the coop in the morning At the time they were all accounted for. Now, at sunset, only two had showed up. Where the hell were the rest of them?
Still dragged out with an illness and thinking with only a dozen brain cells I waved a flashlight around and prowled the vicinity. I was looking for either chickens or carcasses. Amid the wind and gloom I found neither.
Eventually I bumped into Fluffy. Instead of her usual perch in a tree behind the house she was hunkered down in our decrepit barn (which was rocking and swaying in the relentless wind). If she’d been in the tree she’d probably have to cling to it for dear life. Good thinking on Fluffy’s part to relocate. I heard an angry quack and noticed Bowling Pin Chicken (a duck) was there too. So that’s where he went when his water froze? Not bad. I spied one of Fluffy’s battle hardened resistance chickens hunkered down with one of the AWOL laying hens. Fraternizing eh? Well enough of that! I scooped up both of them (leaving Fluffy and Bowling Pin). I’d toss them both into the coop and leave the rest to fate.
Where did the missing chickens go? I have no idea. Perhaps the brutal wind confused them (or blew them to the next county)? Maybe a coyote ate ’em?
It’s a mystery.
I’ve had chickens find new roosts during a storm. But they also tend to do it right after a predator comes round… We just moved the coops from the “summer pasture” to the “winter hoop house” – and this crop of chickens is apparently missing the clever one that shows the others where to go ( of course, this is also the first time we still had roosters, so maybe they are cocking up the decision making) So we spent 4 nights going into the pasture and picking up the stupid things huddled together in the cold, hoping they would get a clue that we moved the coops from the fact that they woke up there each morning. On night Five- something was wrong. The Rooster was on the Gate. There were Chickens in the hay shed. Some where where they were supposed to be and alive. Others were there and dead ( we lost 3 – two DIA and one MIA) We suspect this one was a fox from the injuries and not a Coyote . In past years one Coyote visit ( probably a hybrid Town Dog/Coyote) you get 6-8 birds gone. They kill one and move to the next, and they are QUICK – they will carry the birds and stick em in a culvert or a hole – they MUST pre dig it – and come back for more. So you find 3-4 bodies and the rest just missing. And then you wait for him with the rifle to come back because you KNOW he hid them close by… doesn’t get you the birds back though..
Of course, we had the birds all just wander off one day as well – Freckles ( the smart bird from two season past) took the entire flock across the road to go foraging in the neighbors corn field just after cutting. ( that is why the chickens cross the road) We thought we lost them all. Next day they crossed the road again and were home.
So here’s to hoping they they went walk about..
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