Some horrible beast (fox? pine marten?) got in to the chickens and killed 17 chickens and 2 ducks. It left behind 9 chicken corpses, some without heads. The rest and the ducks disappeared without trace.
They were mostly ones we raised this year (some were to be sold and some eaten by us) but we also lost the cockerel and 3 of the laying hens. All the remaining 7 are female, but none are now laying, 4 of them are young and haven’t started yet, and the 3 that were laying are too traumatised. The 1 remaining female duck has also stopped laying. We are going to need to buy eggs!
It is very sad, and such a terrible waste, whatever it was didn’t even eat that many of them 😢
The electric fence had blown over in the night in the storms and the shock power was very low which is presumably how it happened. We have cranked the power up (by depowering some other fences) and not (yet) had a repeat visit. Fingers crossed...
These are the survivors (plus another ginger one). Not quite decided what to do yet, but we need a new cockerel. May buy one or buy some eggs to hatch in the Spring.
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