We lost another chicken last week. Those of you following our chicken story know we had three at the beginning. One flew the coop, we believe, and got taken or run over. Last week, mom came back inside after heading out to the coop to let the two remaining girls out, and said, “One of the girls is dead.”

I headed out to the coop (with some disposable gloves) and sure enough, one of the girls was dead just inside the door of the coop where the wood has warped and there is an open space. Inside was clear evidence that something had gotten in and a terrific fight had gone on. There were feathers everywhere in the coop, and the poor girl had part of her back end shewed away. I think it likely the orange and white male cat I’ve seen around the property was the culprit, and he could not get the rather large chicken through the rather small gap through which he entered, eventually leaving her behind.

I buried the poor chicken out near the treeline, and we rigged a temporary additional fencing to use to cover the gaps until we build a real coop. We’ve decided to get another five or six layers, and we really do need a sturdy house-like structure for them to go into at night, given all the critters roaming around the country here (raccoon poo on the porch, anyone?) that will happily snack on a chicken head if one is unwise enough to poke out.