And Then There Were Four

Predator attacks are by far the worst part of keeping a barn yard family.  I can deal with the manual labour involved in fencing and housing animals, I am happy to scoop the poop, I can even handle when we harvest our ram lambs or roosters for meat, but I abhor when our animals die at the hands of predators. 

Here on Gael Glen Farm, our "livestock" represent no financial gain for us and honestly cost substantially more to feed and house, than we will ever make back selling the occasional dozen eggs or jar of honey.  Ian and I have long accepted that we will never make a living off our "farm" but we love growing our gardens and giving our menagerie of animals a safe and happy home.  We, and the boys, have a considerable emotional investment in our barn yard family.

But, as with all things in life, sometimes things on our little farm go awry.  Sometimes your chicks just smell too delicious that no fence or coop will stop the hungry neighbourhood fox/raccoon/weasel/fisher/mink/coyote/red squirrel/etc. from breaking in and wreaking havoc on your little flock. 

Sadly, last night was one of those nights.  Ian put all the animals, chicks included, to bed as per usual.  This morning he woke to mayhem.  Something broke down the door of the chicks' coop and massacred almost all of our little feather babies.  Ian said the carnage was unbelievable.  He was upset.  So many of our chicks were dead and or so incredibly wounded that they needed to be culled.  In the end, only four chicks survived out of 27.

I am usually the one who deals with our animals in good times and in bad.  I know Ian has a soft heart when it comes to our animals dying from predator attacks.  I feel terrible that he had to clean up the aftermath of last night's chick massacre alone.

Ian moved the remaining four chicks into the big hens' coop.  These chicks are small yet to be amalgamated into the adult flock but there is no way that they can return to the small coop until it undergoes some serious repairs.  We know that the predator will be back tonight looking for more fresh meat.

Ian baited a trap set inside the little coop and set up a trail cam so we can hopefully see who our unwanted visitor is even if we are unsuccessful in trapping it.  All of our other animals are locked up extra safe and secure in case this visitor decides to check out the other barns after finding no more prey residing in the small coop.

What an incredibly devastating thing to have happened.  Life is such a strange thing.  I spent two months nursing a sick rooster back to health only to now lose 23 baby chicks in one night.  I am not sure that I will ever understand why the world works as it does.