Once upon a time, we had a rooster. Then one day he was killed. We have no idea what happened, we just found him dead one day. I suspected something had gotten after him though because all the hens were hiding in the hen house but there was no proof of an attack anywhere. I’m quite sure he was probably killed by a mink or something similar, while trying to protect his girls. He was a gorgeous rooster, very tame too.
Then, within a few days, all but one of our hens was found dead and we knew it must of been a mink who killed them. They are such nasty creatures that they leave tell tale evidence of who it was that came and killed the hens. I won’t go into details but I’d sure love to get my hands on that critter.
By the next morning, our last hen had died. I was worried about her and figured she wouldn’t make it all alone.
Amazingly, we’d had most of these hens since spring of 2006! My three youngest girls look SO young in this pic!
We had collected our very first dozen eggs July 21st, 2006 and here it is!
Our homestead seemed so ‘empty’ without chickens. I truly mourned the loss of them. Not the loss of the chickens individually as we’ve lost one, two or even three here and there over the first 3.5 years to a mink, or hawk, or some other cause of death. For me the hen’s aren’t really ‘pets’ (although they are to the kids!), but I do truly enjoy them. Knowing that they were ALL gone, seeing the empty hen house and having NO clue when we’d ever be able to have chickens again, just seemed so sad.
We didn’t buy anymore while our home was still on the market. They don’t start laying right away so it just made no sense at that time. Yet, two years in a row we’ve put off getting pigs for this same reason, and now I wish we hadn’t. It was always such a tug of war between my heart and head! I’m so glad we have chickens again now, and I’m glad we added ducks to the mix too!
