Saturday, October 18, 2008

Chickens

So Keith comes in from the backyard yesterday, "Have you seen all the chickens today?" I think about it, "No, I haven't counted them in a few days." Let me clarify something here. I LOVE my chickens. They are my pets. I hand raised them since they were less than 24 hours old last year. Every morning I give them a little bum rub to help get those eggs out and they come running. So today I go out and count, "1, 2, 3 ...missing two. Hmm..." I looked under every bush, found a stash of 31 eggs under my now dead tomato plant - that solves the low egg production lately - but no chickens. Then I remembered that at the back of our yard we have an irrigation ditch that just went dry a few days ago. There is a small part along the fence where they could get out, but have never tried cause of the rushing water right on the other side of the fence. But without the water there, nothing would've stopped them from venturing out. So I climb the fence and walk the ditch yelling, "Chickens! Chickens!" (yes, they speak my language.) Nothing. A mystery. We are over at the neighbors house tonight for a birthday party and Keith casually mentions that we are missing two chickens. Cassie gives me these big eyes, "What? Did you say you are missing two chickens?" "Um, yea, why?" She pauses and says, "Cause there are a ton of feathers under our deck." Let me add that they have two very hyper lab/pitbull mix dogs. So I go running out to the deck to inspect the feathers. Yep, my babies got eaten by the neighbors dogs and dragged under their deck. I almost cried. I couldn't really blame them - it was our fault for not fixing that fence before the water stopped for the winter. We just didn't think our sheltered little chickens would venture out! And then get eaten by two dogs and dragged under their deck. We have bad luck with dogs! Remember the other neighbors pit bull that got into our yard and attacked our goats! Our livestock is targeted -

1 comment:

Cassie said...

I hope you wash your hands after the bum rubs! Your neighbors sound like very reasonable people. Perhaps they feel equally sad for your loss. Maybe a small funeral service could be held in honor of your lost poultry. What a foul situation it is!

Yours,
Concerned Dude
(but not invovled)