We were in Easton in July for our usual sojourn to visit Glenn and Kimberly. We left the chicken with plenty of food and instructions for the neighbor, Pat, to pick up the eggs every few day. Egg production was way down for reasons that we could not seem to address. We have ordered 6 new chickens, 3 Americanas and 3 Sex Links, that would be 12-week old upon arrival to supplement the flock which had arrived in mid-April after we returned from Europe. Two of the new chicken disappeared in a couple of week, we assumed by one of the local bald eagles or hawks, we will never know for sure.

While at G&K’s i would check the chicken camera nervy few days and noticed that one of the chickens was dead and lying in the chicken pen. I knew that Pat had planned on bring her neighbors young girl over to see the checkers so we alerted her to not make the visit and told her NOT to have Dave her husband deal with the dead chicken that we would take care of it when we returned. We thought that Pat would probably ignore our request and have Dave remove the chicken anyway.

We check the camera the next day and the chicken was gone and Pat denied have Dave remove it. First thought the chicken was not dead but it sure looked that way.

When we arrived home it was clear that a predator had gotten in to the chicken pen, but how? After careful investigation there was a space between the pen roof and the chicken house that I never thought would be a problem, turned out I was wrong!

However, we also found five more dead or missing hens, and two severed heads were left behind. We were now down to five hens and Jethro our rooster. We could tell that Jethro had gotten in to a tussle with the predator which we were now convinced was a fox. Jethro had lost some feathers but was otherwise unhurt and had driven the few out the window and had to know out the screen to escape.

Several weeks when by when I saw an add on facebook by a guy in Warsaw that was changing his flock and had Leghorns and White Sex-link for sale, so on a trip back from Richmond we stopped and picked up 10 which turned out to be 9 Leghorns and one white Sex-link. So we were back to having eggs. However following the event it took 3 months before one of the original chicks slayed and egg, the Road Island Red none of the other have resumed laying and the remaining new American for the new batch of 6 has never played and egg, our guess they were traumatized, understandable but there may be a soup pot in their future.

We will order additional chicken in the spring.  Probably Black Sex-Link, Americanas and maybe some Barred Rocks.

This is why we now have an improved and electrified fence around the coop Some additions to Creekview