I forgot to shut and latch the chicken coop last night. Well, I remembered at around 11pm while I was lying in bed. I pondered over getting up, getting a flashlight, making the trek out to the coop, but I didn’t do it. I went to sleep thinking of raccoons and skunks and actually had a dream about the chickens. You know the rest of this story, don’t you.

I feel like such a terrible mother! We now have only 9 chickens. (We started with 10.) All day I kept waiting for the tenth one to emerge from the bushes where they like to hang out during the day, but it never happened. I never imagined I would be this sad over a chicken, as I am not what you would call an animal lover, but I wanted to cry. Good thing they are layers and not fryers. I don’t think I could handle it.

And it could have been a raccoon or a skunk, but we think it may have been a fisher cat. A friend of ours recently had all her chicks and two grown chickens eaten by one of these. It’s not really a cat, but a part of the weasel family. We know it’s not our groundhog – he walks around in broad daylight and could care less about the roaming chickens in our yard. They don’t seem phased by him either.

So, a sad day at the Krum house. You can bet we will secure the girls every night now and even do some upgrades to the coop! (And they’re also getting a new roost so they will stay off of my picnic table!!!! They like the porch swing, too!)