Thursday 5 May 2011
We'd pushed the launch date for the boat back as far as we could, to Friday the 6th, and we worked eleven hour days on Tuesday and Wednesday. As ever, no shopping got done, so we crawled into George's after work Wednesday for a quick meal. We ran into some friends we hadn't seen for the winter and had a good time. Once or twice we reminded ourselves we had to get back to close up the chickens, but it didn't seem too critical, we'd be back by elevenish.
We walked up the hill, closed the door on the coop in the dark and went to bed.
Next morning, when Dave went to let the chicks out, he was devastated to find them gone! Only a trail of sad little feathers marked where a fox must have got in at them. We felt terrible. Chicken-killers. Not fit to be trusted with the care of defenceless creatures.
Naming them Thelma and Louise was all too prophetic. If we ever have chickens again - and Dave is very resistant on the grounds of emotional torment - we will have to name them after long-lived females (perhaps Theresa (Mother) and Florence (Nightingale)?).
In review, we agreed that the chickens arrived too early in the saga of Goat Bottom. The chicken house was incomplete when they moved in, and we'd had no time in April to fix it. We need to build a good strong chicken enclosure before we try again, now that we know more about what can happen.
We'd pushed the launch date for the boat back as far as we could, to Friday the 6th, and we worked eleven hour days on Tuesday and Wednesday. As ever, no shopping got done, so we crawled into George's after work Wednesday for a quick meal. We ran into some friends we hadn't seen for the winter and had a good time. Once or twice we reminded ourselves we had to get back to close up the chickens, but it didn't seem too critical, we'd be back by elevenish.
We walked up the hill, closed the door on the coop in the dark and went to bed.
Next morning, when Dave went to let the chicks out, he was devastated to find them gone! Only a trail of sad little feathers marked where a fox must have got in at them. We felt terrible. Chicken-killers. Not fit to be trusted with the care of defenceless creatures.
Naming them Thelma and Louise was all too prophetic. If we ever have chickens again - and Dave is very resistant on the grounds of emotional torment - we will have to name them after long-lived females (perhaps Theresa (Mother) and Florence (Nightingale)?).
In review, we agreed that the chickens arrived too early in the saga of Goat Bottom. The chicken house was incomplete when they moved in, and we'd had no time in April to fix it. We need to build a good strong chicken enclosure before we try again, now that we know more about what can happen.
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