Thursday, October 20, 2011

July 29, 2008--Chickens

Last night a horrible screaming sound woke me up at about 4:30 A.M. It sounded like something was in pain. Erick and I grabbed our glasses and went to look out the back, and there was a big black dog in our chicken coop. He grabbed his pellet rifle, since he doesn't have a real gun, and shot it a couple of times. It yelped and tried to get out of the coop but couldn't get out, so Erick went down to open the door. It started to growl at Erick and I yelled at Erick to get back up to the deck. Finally the dog found the door and took off. Erick threw a stick after it and I yelled at the dog to "git outta here!" He took off. I couldn't believe how fast he ran, trying to get away. We thought at the time he'd killed one of the three remaining chickens, but this morning she was moving. She's in pretty bad shape, though, and can't fly up to the pole where she likes to roost. The ducks had all flown out of the coop when the dog came in, so they are all okay.

Erick had started a new chicken coop just yesterday. This one is too flimsy and just can't keep the dogs out. The new one is going to be bigger and stronger. We've got more baby chicks ordered, and they should be shipped in September. I'm going to have to buy eggs today when I go shopping today for the first time in months. It's been nice having all the eggs I can handle, but they aren't even laying any right now. Yesterday we ran completely out of eggs, and I had to substitute flax in the cornbread for the eggs.

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