Carnage

A few weeks ago, when Dylan was at Summer Camp, we had a "predator event" and lost one of our Rhode Island Reds.  Rest in peace, George.

The predator squeezed in through a crack in the wiring and shredded the poor girl.  I fixed the gap and tightened up all the spots where I thought it was possible to get in.  Well, we went one night without issue, but then the predator struck again.  This time through the top of the yard cage, where it connects to the coop.  This was a weak spot, as the coop is a plastic kids play cabin and not made out of wood--thus, no easy way to attach the coop to the run.  We lost Rex (as in T-Rex), our "Easter Egger" that laid green eggs.

I came up with a solution of "connecting" the run to the coop with non-flexible wood.  It looks like it's just laying there, but it's all screwed together.  It's not pretty, but it's held up.  No further break-ins or deaths.

Dylan came back and set out to kill the killer, which we thought was a raccoon.  After nights of staking out the area from the treehouse I built back in 2006.

He caught a few glimpses of what he thought was a racoon, then one night watched an opossum for about 20 minutes, as it circled one of the traps.  We mistakenly thought that opossums only ate dead things, but in fact, upon further research, they actually also feed on poultry and small mammals.  He looked the killer in the eye for 20 minutes....