I love my chickens. \u00a0Anyone who knows me knows I love my chickens. \u00a0I have nursed one chicken back from death’s door and seen her go from a crippled, barely able to feed herself chicken, to a fully recovered, scratching, pecking, running, happy chicken.<\/p>\n
Each of my chickens has a name and her own personality. \u00a0I can’t imagine anything happening to any of them.<\/p>\n
Today I saw a striped cat on our front porch. \u00a0The dogs have been having fits the past few days and I thought it was just the squirrels that were driving them crazy. \u00a0One night last week I was outside at night and saw something slink away by our driveway. \u00a0I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, but now I know.<\/p>\n
I heard Freedom throwing a fuss in the garden this evening. \u00a0Yes, I know it was Freedom. \u00a0I recognize each chicken’s clucking. \u00a0 I thought maybe she had laid an egg, but when I went out to look, Freedom was gathering all the hens in one place chuttering up a storm. Freedom has designated herself as the watch chicken. \u00a0I know that because she does a walk about the chicken yard each night to be sure everyone is in the coop. She had all the chickens gathered together and was squawking. \u00a0Then I saw it. \u00a0The cat. Sitting on the fence overlooking the garden. \u00a0Watching my hens. \u00a0Tail switching. \u00a0I ran over and yelled at it and banged on the fence. \u00a0I have a feeling it will be back.<\/p>\n
Later, I took a flashlight out and scoured the area. \u00a0The girls were already shut up tight and safely in their coop. \u00a0They have no idea what is out there waiting to tear them limb from limb. \u00a0I will have to keep vigilant. \u00a0I am telling the dogs to “sic” the bad cat. \u00a0All you cat lovers, I love cats too, but not when they are stalking my chickens. \u00a0Bonnie and Belle have been put on cat watch. \u00a0I will have to check the chooks more often now.<\/p>\n
Maybe I will have to fit the chickens with vests and helmets to protect them from predators. \u00a0This will not end well for the cat should it kill one of my girls. \u00a0I’m thinking a trap set up to catch it might be on my list of things to buy.<\/p>\n
If you have any suggestions about how to keep cats away from chickens, I would love to hear them. \u00a0Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love my chickens. \u00a0Anyone who knows me knows I love my chickens. \u00a0I have nursed one chicken back from death’s door and seen her go from a crippled, barely able to feed herself chicken, to a fully recovered, scratching, pecking, running, happy chicken. Each of my chickens has a name and her own personality. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets-i-love","category-the-chooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1959,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/1959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}