Sad News, Everyone.

I’m seriously bummed out. One of our Silver Duckwing Bantam hens went missing yesterday. She’s the one who has been snuggling at night up in the coop rafters with one of the SDB (“Picard”) roosters. She wasn’t up there with him last night when we shut the coop up for the night and fed them, and he was making some pretty sad-sounding noises. 🙁

I’m feeling kind of guilty, too, because I’m fighting some sort of creepin’ crud of a cold, and so I spent a lot more time indoors yesterday than I normally would. I’m worried that a predator got to her because I wasn’t there to protect our flock. It’s weighing heavily on my mind this morning.

I had hoped that perhaps she’d be wandering outside the coop this morning, as has happened on other occasions with our standard breeds, and with one of our Denizli chicks a couple of weeks ago, but she was nowhere in sight. It dipped below freezing last night, too, so I’m not sure she’d have survived the cold on her own even if she was out there.

This is one of the risks of letting your birds free-range, though. With that freedom comes the opportunity for predators to take advantage of them. I’m usually quite diligent about watching over the flock, but when I’m running at half-speed myself, I guess I’m just not up to the task.

So, we now just have one Silver Duckwing Bantam/Picard hen left in the flock. I’m hoping that she sticks around and is very careful about where she chooses to explore. I wish that I could arm them with tiny little automatic weaponry: Rambo Chickens, if you will. But I guess their lack of opposable thumbs would become an issue with that, too.

I realize that there is a natural order of things, and that predators have to eat, too. I just wish they’d stick to the wild things around here, and leave my poor birds alone!

We hope you enjoy our blog and the antics of our farm. Please con­sider becom­ing our fan on Face­book, and if you use Twit­ter, by all means, please add us there!

Related Images: