We came back to find all the chickens gone, just piles of feathers and also Peia the duck was missing without a trace.
It is very sad as they were all settled and we had become quite attached to them.
Randomly the next day whilst Steve was cleaning the car he thought he heard a clucking noise so ran into the garden to see Red the chicken being chased by a fox! Star shot off after the fox whilst Steve tried to catch Red. Some 3hrs later Red was back safe and sound, the poor thing had been on the run all night! but seemed to have escaped harm although we don't know how seeing as she lost so many feathers.
So down to 1 chicken and 3 ducks. Red made friends with the ducks and moved in with them but we needed to get her some friends as it wasn't the same and she seemed a bit depressed.
Apparently there seem to be a larger number of foxes around this year plus there are some more urban foxes around too which are much more cocky, we have actually caught one in our courtyard! I guess this is country living for you and a few lessons learned.
We decided to further fox proof the chicken coop with an outside framework and replenish our stock.
We bought the same breeds as before thanks to Angela and Stuart from Brynheulog rare breeds http://www.brynheulog.com so we now have 5 chickens and 3 ducks. They have all settled in and Red seems back to her old self again... one of the Frizzel chickens actually laid an egg on the way home so we saw this as a good omen!
Meet the new batch:
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| Enjoying a dust bath |
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