the night of the raccoons

I woke, around 3:00 AM, to a sound like no other.  It was a high-pitched wail, clearly not human, but animal, and alarming.  It was the sound of distress, so out of bed in a flash, my mind slowly realizing I had left the chicken coop open for the bajillionth time and this bad habit had finally caught up with me.
I stumbled down to the coop, and noticed first the swinging feeder, in motion because something large had bumped by.  Sabine was pacing, clucking and pacing, and I almost concluded that she had caused the commotion.  But no, wake up, Kim, count the chickens.  There was Sabine, and Goldie, that was it, and then the caterwauling came from the other end of the yard.  My other chickens!  I plunged through the dark bushes toward the cry and heard something rattle the fence.  A dark shape, Ethel, made her way up the hill toward me and melted into my arms when I picked her up.  She had been hurt around her ear, bit, and I wiped off the blood and took her back to the coop, where she limped around, clearly injured in her leg as well.  She seemed determined to pace the coop, Cowgirl was still missing.  I shone my flashlight over the fence into the neighbor's yard and two beads of yellow reflected back at me - predator eyes!  As I watched, the eyes turned away and a large brown body crawled over the far fence. My first thought was marsupial, like a wallaby, certainly not my first suspect the coyote.  Raccoon.  Raccoons are smart, they'll come back.  I waited by the coop to be sure.  Two yellow eyes beamed back at me from inside a tree, and I was able to make out the face mask and ears.  Then Sheeba, our cat, what was she doing out here?  When I returned from tossing her back into the house, the eyes were right above the coop, perched at the fence juncture like a gargoyle.  GIT!  I waited again.  Something was moving about at the other end of the yard, sure enough, there were two of them, one missing its tail.  They tried tightrope-walking the fence toward the coop again, and I hurled a rock at one, missed, but deterred it.  About five minutes later, somewhere near 4 AM, the birds started up and knew they were gone.  After reinforcing the chicken-wire, I fell back to bed.
The big question is do I have to sit watch again tonight.  I need a bb-gun.
I almost forgot - Cowgirl was wandering around under the kitchen window this morning.  How she evaded the invaders will remain her little secret.

Happy Chickens

Southern California has seen a lot of rain in the last week and 1/2, everything from a dense gray drizzle to flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder.  I regret that I did not get a rain water catch system set up before this storm- I would be set for the whole winter season!  However, the rain always brings up bugs, worms and fresh green sprouts of grass, and my foraging chickens are very happy.

This is Ethel, who has recently gone through a very traumatic molt, but seems finally to be emerging from the experience.  Along with looking like a half-eaten carcass, she had a nasty attitude.  We are happy to have our feathered friend back.

These pictures show the growth of my youngest chickens, Sabine (who was originally Sebastian) and Grayson (who was originally Gracie).  Grayson has turned out to be quite the gentleman of a rooster.  He escorts Sabine around the yard and hardly crows at all.  I realize this may change still, but I am very happy with this fellow so far.

Look at those gorgeous feathers!  Just for fun, I am also adding a picture of our rabbit, Bunnicula.  She is participating in a little experiment with me.  Along with teaching my 6 year old responsibility, she is supplying our worms with copious amounts of rabbit poop.  My daughter had been asking for months to have a pet bunny, but it wasn't until  I read on the Urban Homestead website that you could drop those droppings directly into the wormbin that I was won over.  The trick, however, is eliminating as much of the urine as possible before giving it to the worms, as it is too strong for them to process.   TMI you say? I will let you know if this experiment is worth the aromatic qualities of the procedure.