I had just gotten into bed Sunday night and was flopping around trying to get my back in a comfortable position without sending Cecil flying. I heard a few chirps out my open window, but ignored it. Then a few more chirps, but I was just starting to get comfortable, so stayed in my happily horizontal position after a long week. I perked my ears and listened for chickens.
More chirps. I started thinking about bobcats and mountain lions and coyotes, but I had compeleted the chicken tractors just hours before and knew every inch was securely covered in wire. The bottom two feet was bolstered with a second layer of thicker wire because possums and coons are known to reach in and pull legs and heads off birds sleeping within paws' reach. The chicks were so quickly outgrowing their pens in the barn, and the stentch and heat from all of them packed in had become not only uncomfortable but deadly. I'd found three birds, flat as pancakes and featherless from post-mortem trampling, in the last two days and had made completing the chicken tractors my first priority. As often as we mucked, we just couldn't keep up with the pace of the eating and shitting, and the ammonium and bacteria and rising temperatures created a dangerous combination. At long last the pens were ready, and we herded the birds into dog kennels for their trip across the farmyard. They seemed so content in their new home with a fresh breeze ruffling their feathers and sping grass under their feet for the first time. We released the last kennel late in the evening, and I left them with a great feeling of satisfaction, pleased to have vastly improved the quality of life for these strange little meat makers. This picture shows the barn, yuck:
The chirps became a chorus, and something was definitely wrong out there. This wasn't just a bird complaining about getting squished by his siblings. I slid into my crocs on the way out the door and grabbed the coleman lantern. Once I got out the door, I could hear the chickens clearly and there was distinct pain and panic in their screams. I started running and fumbled hastily with the gate, one of many on the ranch that dangles from it's twine-reinforced hinges and has to be wrestled open. As I closed in on the pens my lantern lit a large hole torn through the wire side of one and a ribcage lying in bloody feathers. A brown furry something was moving in the pen, and chicks were flying through the air. My lantern was not putting out much light, and I started hollering "OUT OUT OUT YOU!" but the predator didn't turn or seem to notice me. I got close enough for my light to reach inside the pen, and the brown butt turned around and it was a bear with a chicken in it's mouth and paws sweeping through the hudding, screaming flock. It looked at me for just a moment, then turned away and continued the slaughter.
Bear! I hadn't even considered a bear, and I staggered back, feeling so unprepared in my pajamas and crocs. I ran back for the subaru, and raced to the pasture. The bear kept up his killing despite the headlights pouring in and my hollering, but began trying to escape when I laid on the horn (not in the middle of the steering wheel I finally figured out). He squoze himself through the hole he'd torn and loped off towards the river.
Corpses were stewn in every part of the pen, none eaten but many disemboweled. Every single chick had blood somewhere on it's body, and as I went for gloves Caitlin and Peter came running out to help.We triaged the birds and drowned the fifteen who seemed "unrehabilitatable" (a euphamism they employed at the animal shelters). Forty birds died tonight, and we'll probably loose a few more by morning to overlooked and internal injuries. We still have two hundred and five, and they're back in the barn on fresh straw to wait for their electric poultry netting to reinforce the pens (and I hope I fry that bastard when he comes back for seconds). Three o'clock and I'm off to bed but the adreneline is still fading from seeing that bear and the devastation he wrecked on our helpless chicks. I can't imagine why they kill so ruthlessly and needlessly, but I've read it's not uncommon with other predators like dogs and possums and weasels either. I'll have to talk to the ranchers who told us this pen design was predator proof and see if we left out the razor wire or something! I'll post pics of the surviors and the hole in the pen tomorrow. Phew!
back again. Or when I'm picking through the screw bucket!
