Last Thursday, I had visitors while I was at work.
That’s my chicken quarantine cage that I mentioned a while back. They damaged the tarp that I have covering the cage to provide shade and broke several of the light-duty carabiners I’d used to hold it in place. They also jumped on top of the run itself, causing significant damage. Wife didn’t notice until they’d been here a while and quite thoroughly terrified the birds. She came out, yelled at them, and they eventually ran off.
This morning, they came back. I was home and heard a bark shortly after I heard the chickens making what I initially thought was just their normal racket. I grabbed a pistol and headed outside. Wife came with. She started yelling at them and begged me to “try to miss – just scare them” and like an idiot, I listened. Scaring them off didn’t work last time. The gun and the yelling distracted them but weren’t very effective at running them off, so I know they’ll be back. This morning, I had the perfect opportunity to drop at least two, maybe all three, but I didn’t. I probably won’t even be here next time they come.
This is what they did this morning before I was able to respond.
She’s lucky to have survived. I failed to protect my birds. And, I failed to implement the permanent solution when I had the chance. I pray they don’t come back. If the answer to that prayer comes back in the negative, I pray that I’m here and can deal with the problem before more damage is done.
Grumpy 