TOUGH DAY
anne nixon-ellery
so i haven't blogged for ages, there goes another one of my new years resolutions! i keep kicking myself for not, it is nice to document the craziness ~ i nearly didn't write this one because I didn't want to get back into the swing of things with a sad post.
many of you will remember the whole getting my chick delivery hoopla!! well our 17 baby chicks did well, despite being lost within the postal service...
we kept them under a heating lamp, watched them grow, fed, watered & cared. then it was time to start the transition to the outside coup... the girls were getting big!
this morning i went to let everyone out & to my horror discovered 'something' had dug a hole under the part where the chicks were & killed all but 4. one of them had to be put down because of injuries.
so we are left with 3.
out of the ones we got last year we went from 7 to 5... thanks to a red tailed hawk. there i was admiring it in a tree, little did i know it had just taken out my son flynn's hen (etta james) that he used to carry around & my best layer, mayflower.
we bought a decoy (fake hawk) & i kept having heart attacks when i looked out of the window till i got used to it...
we also use that sparkly tape, that seems to work well as a deterrent & the goats love to eat it...
do i see a 'guardian' animal in the horizon?