This is a Ridiculous Story:

So, last Monday night, while I was away on vacation, some animal ripped apart the wood on the back of the new coop. The predator made a hole in the wood big enough to fit through. Now, this wood was nailed together with about six nails and it would be absurd to assume an animal could rip it apart. But on Monday night, this animal ripped through the wood and proceeded to terrorize my chickens! This is a picture of the hole:

Our caretaker of our chickens came to the coop Tuesday morning to let out the chicks and found the mini coop empty! Cinnamon and Saffron were gone! She found the hole and lots of feathers and assumed they were dead. She felt awful and dreaded telling me the news. But, when she came back that night to put the chickens away, she found Cinnamon and Saffron inside the coop! They were both fine and had no battle scars. Someone had propped up a small table from our backyard against the hole and had put a rock in front to secure it. Our caretaker, being baffled by these odd events, asked our next door neighbors about the chickens. They said that they had found Cinnamon and Saffron inside their garage, had put them back in the coop, and had blocked off the hole. But if a predator had ripped the wood, made a hole, and tried to attack the birds, how did they escape? The hole wasn’t very large and the animal probably entered the hole, thus blocking off the exit with its body size. There is no logical explanation that suggests the chickens fled the coop while the animal was blocking the door. So, how did the chickens escape past the predator unscathed? And furthermore, why would they escape to the neighbor’s garage? Why not to under my deck or inside my tree house?

My neighbor’s have a small dog, named T.J., who has attacked our chickens before. He injured Ginger last year when he entered our garage and opened the pen door. And when Richard disappeared last summer, the neighbors acted strangely. So was it their dog who ripped through our coop and they are just too “chicken” to admit it? Or maybe they really did tell the truth and it was just another predator? I suppose I will never know the real truth, but the important thing is that Cinnamon and Saffron are happy and healthy — acting as if nothing ever happened!

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New Coop

Today, at about 9:00 A.M., my dad and I went out to the yard to build a mini coop for Cinnamon and Saffron. They have been staying in our garage for the past two months in a box with netting around it. They were cramped and our garage had begun to stink. So, yesterday, I cleaned all of the poop, feathers, dust, and straw out of the garage and got rid of the box. Cinnamon and Saffron spent the night in the outdoor run while the big chickens roosted inside the coop like usual. The pullets are still too young to live with the big chickens.

Anyway, this morning my dad and I built a mini coop out of his wooden work table. He made a pull-up door that leads to an attached run. They have room to scratch and play during the day and a safe shelter and a roost to stay in at night. It’s the perfect size for them at this age. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, Cinnamon and Saffron will be big enough to live with the older chickens. We can also reuse this new mini coop for our future Silkies when they get older.

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Chickie Update

Sorry, I haven’t posted in awhile — I have been busy playing outside and enjoying the summer weather with my chickens! Everybody is happy and well, including Garretta, who is now laying again! In a previous post I said her butt was completely bare of all feathers due to pecking and molting. Well, her butt is feathering in nicely now and her molting has ceased for the time being. Dali is as happy as ever and still not relocated, although we will have to bring him to his new home sometime this week because we are going on vacation soon. We have decided to bring him to a local petting zoo where he will have plenty of hens to annoy and hopefully be very happy! At the petting zoo, there is a pen with four hens and no roosters. I am hoping the zoo will allow him to hang there with the girls seeing as he loves companionship.

The chicks — er, not so much chicks anymore — are happy and healthy and are growing as quickly as ever! Cinnamon and Saffron (the chicks) are both quite large and I can tell by there size right now that they will outgrow Guinevere and Ginger by a couple of pounds! They are currently living in our garage in a pen, but will soon be transported into an outdoor pen. They are not old enough to live with the big chickens yet, but have already been aquainted with them. Dali pecked them very lightly only a couple of times and mostly just left them alone. He did, however, shuffle around them like he does to the other hens, so I’m hoping the chicks are girls!!

As for the baby Silkies, Mary still does not have any chicks. If she doesn’t have any Silkies by August, we will have to order them from a hatchery.Well, by for now!!

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