#wormbecca

Had to draw...some hens...

years ago, I had a coop built on her property in case my guys ever needed to be re-located. she's since put her own birds in it, but it's large enough that there's plenty of room, and she's expanded on it since then, adding a fenced off area for everyone to wander in relative safely.

the problem I'm having is rats. they figured out that my chicken run isn't airtight, and they've been stealing feed and reproducing. it's not fair to my neighbours to be running a rat mill out of my yard, and I also can't do much to prevent them so long as there's a food source (believe me, I've been waging active war against these guys all year, trying all sorts of devious things).

so my plan is to remove the chickens, remove the chicken feed, and turn my yard into Fort Knox. really go to town fixing up my fencing, lay down gravel to interfere with digging, etc. it'll be easy to see if worked or not, because over winter any wandering rats will leave footprints in the snow.

not the most exciting photos, but here are Wormbecca and Tallgeese in with my mom's flock!

we did a slow introduction (keeping one group in the run and one in the yard, and then swapping, etc), which paid off. Tallgeese lost a few feathers on the first few days of integration, but there was no bloodshed, and everybody is now able to coexist peacefully.

a fox attacked the chickens this afternoon!

I heard the ladies screaming, so ran outside. Wormbecca was running circles yelling her head off, while Tallgeese just stood there placidly allowing herself to be dragged off. which is at least in character for her.

I chased the fox out of the yard with a shovel, locked Wormy in the coop, and then checked over Tallgeese for injuries. luckily, she doesn’t look to have any broken skin. Tallgeese is moulting at the moment, and is an incredibly fluffy bird, so all the fox managed to get was a mouthful of loose feathers. she has a new bald spot, which will probably be all sad and bruised tomorrow, but no broken bones, no tooth punctures, etc. we got extremely lucky!

I’ve never actually seen a wild fox before, so am hoping this guy is a passerby rather than a permanent resident. in any case, the ladies will be shut in the run for the next couple months - the fox can’t reach them through the chickenwire, and should hopefully learn that all it gets from this yard is an angry 6′2 torontonian with a shovel.