The great chicken nemesis, the opossum, found a way into the coop this evening. Fortunately for my ladies, she was a very young predator. She did manage to frighten my birds into a cackling frenzy, chasing them off their perch and into the run. Scott found her, desperately clutching the wire at the top of the run, trying to find a way out. My years volunteering for a wildlife rehab prepped me for opossum removal (although she was fast and wiggly and I lost her on the first grab). I finally got her, and set her free.

Opossums eat chickens. We’ll have to review the coop in the daylight tomorrow to find the breach. In the meantime, I locked the door to the roosting area. Unfortunately, the opossum will return, and she’ll quadruple in size.

I can hear my hens squawking from their coop. Josie had a very close call with a sharp-shinned hawk this morning. I was standing about five feet away when it landed on her back! It bailed on the chicken-breakfast-project quickly, probably because I was there. SSH’s are quite small, so I am not sure it could have carried her off. Josie didn’t seem to know what was happening, just let out a “WTF?” squawk and made her way back into the coop. I need to check her back for injuries today, just as soon as I finish hosting my next webinar. Ah, life in the burbs.

Well, it had to happen at some point. Our poor house sitter went outside to find Jessica prone, headless, and mangled in the coop. Interesting that predators are so consistent – they always eat the chicken head first. They also generally eat the nether regions but I didn’t want to subject the house sitter to that type of cadaver inspection.

The other ladies are a bit rattled, but otherwise OK. Egg production is down, but picking up again. We found a small breach at the base of the coop, a place where a single strand of wire had rusted out. We can’t tell what happened for sure, but Jessica may have had her head stuck outside, or something small and agile may have come in. It’s tough to be a chicken.

For any of you who don’t know me, I am not heartless. I am sad she died, but if you keep chickens you have to put up a barrier, a clinical approach to death. They are my pets, but they die frequently and in unpleasant, messy ways. I’ve had exactly one chicken die of old age, poor old Larry, who was actually senile.

Silver linings: I only lost one. The others will benefit from more run space. She lived a relatively long chicken life. I found the hole and patched it.

We have an owl. He/she lives on our property – we see her everyday in trees around the house. Cameron has declared that the owl is a girl, and named her Mariposa. And while it’s incredibly cool to hear her calling, day and night, and watching her watch us, she’s a harbinger of death for my flock. Barred owls, Strix varia, are opportunistic hunters. And, like just about everything on earth, myself included, they love to eat chicken. Interesting facts: their only real predators, aside from humans, are Great Horned Owls. They can live to be 10 years in the wild, and 23 in captivity.

If I am 100% diligent, and keep my birds within the run at all times, they should escape Mariposa’s talons. More likely, I will get overconfident, let them have the run of the backyard (I’m supervising, I will tell myself). Then I will get thirsty, head to the kitchen to get a cold one, and Mariposa will seize her opportunity. “Silly Stasia, owls only hunt at night,” you think. Not true. Barred Owls have been known to hunt during the day, especially near dusk. Last year, at about 6 p.m., a Barred Owl landed about 50 feet from Scott and grabbed a big old snake off the ground. And yes, we live in the suburbs.

You can learn more about Barred Owls at the sites I list below.

• Not a whole lot of info here, but I feel obligated to list Cornell’s site because my sis goes here.
• Good info at OwlPages.com
• Great audio recordings from Owling.com
• I am disappointed to report that the “virtual owl pellet dissection” app on KidPages.com, while brilliant in theory, doesn’t work. So, you’ll have to go out and fetch some real poop.