Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Predator and Blue, tied 2 for 2

I'm beginning to think that the predators are hiring reinforcements: a sort of wildlife League Of Villains. I swear every time I try some new critter-proofing, several new critters show up to test it out.

I lost another hen, reset the trap, and got another 'coon. In the meantime I put together this for the biddies:

Yes, I know ... all my construction has a classic beauty, lol. In my own defense, almost everything is of recycled material. As a matter of fact the only thing I used here that was new was the chickenwire.

Here's the inside:

It's built onto an existing shed which was used as a workshop. Those are shelves in the pic. I just built around them and will put nest boxes up there.

Here's an exterior side view with biddies installed:

Those are Barred Rocks and black-tailed Japs. I had carefully (I thought) patched any holes bigger than 1 inch but then I went out one evening to find this lovely bloke:


He had killed one of the Rocks and was trying to swallow him when I yanked him out. I'm 5'8" and his head brushed the ground with me holding him as high as possible. The weird spots in the pic are from the rain that was pouring down at the time.

*sigh* So now I've inspected the biddy pen again (saw where the snake got in as he tried to get out the same way) and am being scrupulous about shutting up the hens at night. So far so good. Perhaps i'll actually get to write a post that doesn't include a lengthy blow-by-blow of critter warfare, LOL!

(PS: I do not kill snakes, in case you were wondering)

1 Comments:

At 6:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOW! What sort of snake is it?

I was looking on Google for historic poultry crate pics and found your blog (still haven't found the pic). I live in England and aspire to the life you are living. Land is so expensive out here though.. unless you go right up north and then you lose the weather! We have idly looked at moving to the US, and South Carolina was on the wish-list, as was a period property. I'm hoping there are going to be pics of yours as I read on.

I have read about your dad and Kim. I don't know you at all, but all my thoughts and love are with you. Isn't blogging cathartic and wonderful?!

Rachel

 

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