Lost chicks, new fence

As I mentioned the baby chicks we had bought over the weekend I was unaware that there was another part to the story. As Mama went on her rounds to feed the chickens yesterday morning she discovered we had left the coop door opened through the night - again. She found the cage door bent and opened and all the chicks gone. Not one feather, no sign of blood, just and empty cage where we had housed the little ones for the night. That was a disappointing discovery.


We had set up the cage in the coop to help acclimate the chickens to the little ones in the hope of making a smoother transition in the weeks to come. Mama is not a fan of the way chickens establish a pecking order in the coop. It is one of those unavoidable necessities of having chickens on the farm, but that does not mean she has to like it.

For some reason she had decided to open the coop on Sunday afternoon – after we had agreed to leave the flock penned up – and none of us had thought to close it that evening after church.

Victoria said she had seen something at the coop while she was giving Lily her last bottle of the day but did not think much about it at the time. We all settled in for the night while some varmint was going back and forth cleaning out our chicks.

Needless to say, Mama did not go back yesterday for the other chicks we had talked about getting to add to the ones purchased. We are going to try again but we will have to set things up differently. Since the dogs were not alerted by and commotion in the coop while the thievery was in progress, we will set things up closer to the house on the off chance that the dogs can intervene if the robber decides to come back for seconds.

Speaking of doors left open, Mama and I have had an issue with gates being left open. Case in point, she had to chase a calf out of the garden yesterday because one of us had left one of the upper gates on the garden open. After the fiasco last weekend of having a cow jump the fence and trample the garden I thought it would be good to go ahead and put up the fence on the upper end of the garden to keep our cows out. I do not know what we will do tehnext time the neighbor’s cow vaults into the garden.

Mama and I worked on that after I took the time to put the second coat of sealant on the apartment floor. Both projects turned out pretty well. Now the floor is done and the garden is separated from what we will make into an orchard…as soon as I have the money to buy some fruit trees. For the moment we will probably let the sheep graze that patch of grass – as long as the garden is not accessible to them.

This afternoon I am supposed to meet someone to pick up a six week old ewe for our growing flock of sheep. We are buying it from the same persons who sold us Lily and Shorty. They are giving us a fair price on what we are buying and the contact has been mutually beneficial for Mama and the lady of the farm selling the sheep.

Like the garden, the sheep will require a lot of new fence.