I have been harboring a secret from most of the world for almost a month.  I have decided that I need to be honest and disclose the truth.  One of our chickens was killed by a fox.

In the middle of August, with hot nights and late sunsets, we began to close the coop later and later at night.  With a false sense of security and a bit of laziness, we didn’t close the coop at all.  At 2:00 a.m., I was awoken by a scream-like sound.  I knew it wasn’t any of our children and hoped it was just a wild animal.  Fully awake, I heard the noise again.  I knew it was one of my babies.

Tom and I ran downstairs and peered out the window to the girls’ pen.  Many of them were outside of the coop, an obvious sign that something was wrong.  Without my glasses or contacts, I could see an animal with a bushy tail inside the pen also.  Tom went to the pen’s entry and stared at the red-tailed fox who had one of our girls in his mouth.  With another moment of staring the fox dropped the chicken, who bolted into our garage, and the fox escaped through the hole in the fence he had made.

Surveying the pen, one of our araucanas had been killed.  The chickens were scared, with some sitting on the highest perch in the coop and others nervously walking in the pen.  We collected all of the chickens, including the one in the garage, and locked them safely inside the coop.  Counting the chickens, we only had 15.  Two more of our girls were missing.

After a sleepless night, morning dawned, and Tom went to let the chickens out of the coop.  Much to his happiness, one of our missing girls was waiting outside the fence, trying to figure out how to get into the pen.  With only one chicken on the missing list, we assumed the worst.

Fortunately, this sad story has as bright of an end as possible.  Later that day, our 7 year old came running into the house declaring, “One of our chickens is by a cat next door!”  As she was so scared, I was able to catch her within a minute.

We had all 17 girls home, safe and sound.  Since that night, we have closed the coop as soon as the sun goes down and the chickens go to bed.  We even have delayed evening events to insure that our babies are safely closed into their coop for the night.  While we were very sad to lose one of the girls in such a horrible fashion, we were very grateful that more weren’t lost due to our complacency.

Life has returned to normal for the girls:

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