And Then There Were Two

It's been a while since we moved the not-so-baby chickens to the coop inside their own cage to protect them from the older chickens. We thought everything was going well. Until Aji went out to check on the chickens and a very large blow snake was wrapped around the biggest baby chicken and constricting it. Aji was quite startled by this since she had reached her hand inside the box. She ran back to the house and yelled that there was a snake in the chicken coop. Ganesh killed the snake, but it was too late to save the chicken, it was dead. Once again, we just never thought a snake would get in the chicken coop and kill a chicken much too large for the snake to eat. It was so pointless...pointless killing. We are so angry that the snake had to do that to our little chicken, but at least we got a tiny bit of justice. If we had just checked the chickens a little earlier, we probably would have saved it. Will any of these chickens survive to adulthood? A sad feeling lingered the rest of the day and even into the next day. Poor chicken. 

We've been told that blow snakes are not venomous and are kind of "good" to have around because they eat mice and because they out-hunt rattlesnakes. So I guess it's good but do they have to attack our chickens for no reason? 

We decided that it was time for them to leave their little cage and just be free so they can defend themselves instead of being sitting *ducks* in a cage. Now they are roaming around but interestingly they don't like to leave the coop even though the door is open, eventually I'm sure they will. This really isn't worth all the trouble. Next time, if there is a next time, we will probably just order some adult chickens from our neighbors at the Five Fingers Farm who do this for a living. 

Later in the day, we decided to clean out the coop, because we've been using it a little bit like a shed to keep bags of grass seed and hay etc. The hay bedding for the chickens was a few inches deep along the whole floor, and we realized that if there was a snake in the coop we wouldn't be able to tell. So I went out there and raked the old hay out and took the bags of stuff out and the two remaining chickens were standing at my feet and looking up at me. Occasionally pecking my feet. I guess they are friendly after all. It was the hottest part of the day and it was pretty horrible. Would have been fine if it wasn't so darn hot. I don't know why 80-something degrees here feels like 100. Why is that? Is it the altitude or the lack of humidity? I want to know. We added a few more nesting boxes up high so they can retreat to safe areas if some predator got in there again and fully outfitted them with fresh hay. I put some more hay on the ground but less of it so a snake couldn't theoretically hide in deep hay.

The adult chickens make their way into Aji's garden and eat the veggies, so Winston has a job which is perfectly suited for him and channels all his rough and tumbly energy and he is very good at it. Every time anyone sees a chicken in the garden we yell, "Chicken in the Garden!" and Winston jumps up from whatever he is doing, bolts out the door, grabs a broom and screams, "Argggghhhh! Ahhhh! Go Away! Arrrrggghh!" and runs around like a crazy person until they leave.

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