Crappy Day

I knew things were going too well.

I told you that we were going to start letting our chicks and chickens free range this week.

Guess what happened this afternoon?

Yes. Another massacre.

Different dogs this time, from people that live a mile-and-a-half north. Two springer spaniels. We caught them and threw them in the garage. Friendly dogs. Stupid owners.

We had 49 chicks & chickens. Now we have eighteen. Five of those probably won't make it. Those two dogs killed 31 of our birds. In less than an hour, I figure.

The chicks were too young to make the loud chicken squawking noises, otherwise we might have heard the commotion outside. We don't have any windows that look out to the chicken and goat area, otherwise we might have seen the slaughter from the house. The first I noticed anything was when the dogs, apparently tired of chasing chickens, started barking at our goats through the fence.

I couldn't reach the neighbors on the phone, but I did reach their grown son who lives in town. He came by to pick up the dogs. His Mom and a visiting friend are at the races in a nearby town, and he figures she asked her friend to put the dogs in the kennel before they left. He thinks the friend didn't lock the door correctly. He said he called his Dad, who trucks and is on the road somewhere. His Dad told him they will pay for the losses. He won't be happy when I tell him how much money I want.

All that work, getting those chicks eating and drinking and growing and thriving. Half-an-hour every night, feeding and watering and cleaning their brooder. I didn't lose a single one. All the hope I had for those eggs, the experience of butchering our own meat, the fridge and freezer filled with home-grown food.

I could order more chicks. But we're pushing late summer, and they would only be three months old by the middle of November when the temps really start to drop. I wouldn't order any roosters, because it would be January before they'd be old enough to butcher. The minimum order for chicks is 25. Do I want to try to bring 25 pullets through the winter?

My husband says to wait until spring, and start them early in March. My husband has concocted plans to extend the fence from the chickens' fenced run outward to the goats' fenced pasture, and let them have the run of both areas. They wouldn't be 'free-range' anymore, but they would have more than a half-acre of space. And they would be safe from dogs and foxes.

I was really looking forward to those eggs.

Crappy dogs.

Crappy day.