Oh...the carnage...and the miracles!

What a title, right??

I mentioned about the stupid critter (s) the are in our area....well more carnage in the past few days.

On Saturday, one of the white delawares.
On Sunday, Raindrop, our half-blind Comet that we nursed back to health...the second.
On Monday morning...poor Rooster BooCoo was not found...neither was three of the "guard guineas".  One or two of the guineas are the "loud-mouths" that call everytime something is amiss (in their estimation anyway-sometimes a shiny car is enough to set them off!)

The hens (turkey, guinea, ducks) will not sleep in the hen house now.  They are too freaked out, so they have been sleeping on the woodpile, the gas grill, the TOP OF MY CAR (!!!), on the wishing well, and who knows where else.  So I did some rearranging.  I moved the 16 juvenile birds that are about 2 months old, into the bigger moveable coop.  There were 3 new guineas, my new flock of turkeys (5), 4 new Buff Orpingtons, and 4 new Americaunas.  They were doing great in the little moveable coop, but with the forcast of storms, I wanted them to have more room.  So off to the bigger coop. Then Iona was moved to right outside the big hen yard.  Boy and I waited until dark and moved all the birds that were out nesting in the various places into the yard.

Next morning....ah, no dead adult birds.  Went around to the back of the hen house to the moveable coop..Oh my stinking head!  6 dead.  2 guineas (those must taste really good), 2 turkeys, 1 buff and 1 americauna.  And the guinea that is left, I will be surprised if it survives as it has a terrible wound across the back of it's neck.  We think it is a opossum because it only seems to eat the heads (Opossums are the zombies of the animal world!!)

Last night (Tues) Same routine, Boy and I waited until dark then rounded up the big birds.  Put Iona on her chain by the big hen yard.  And now Danny has a farm job!! He was hooked up to the moveable coop.

Hooray!  It worked....for now.  I didn't sleep well.  I kept having nightmeres of "something bad" happening to Boy's dog and being the worst-mom-ever.  But it went alright.  Now Kristl is the only 'slacker' on the farm!

Iona on guard duty

Oh, and the miracle....I almost forgot!!  Remember I told you we had 3 duck hens on nests.  The morning of the great carnage, I went out an found 11 ducklings running around the hen yard!! Yellow ones, black ones and both black and yellow! 

But wait...I figured it was the hen that had been out under the rabbit cages.  I went out to the barn, and low and behold...she is still on her nest....what?!?!  Back out to look at the flock.  Come to figure out...one of our original hens (a grandma as Boy says) who was unique in that she has one brown eye and one green/blue eye was out there....I realized I hadn't seen her in a while.  Quack (her name) had hidden REALLY well and she is the mama! 

Quack is the one with the white chest