Raccoons: 8; Chickens: 0

On four separate occasions, three of which took place while I was at Yiddish Week, raccoons (I am supposing) came and killed chickens. On the fourth visit, they untoggled the front wall, removed it entirely, and killed the last two chickens.

What a horror story: you, one of those last two chickens, having survived the killing fields three times, are perched at night, listening to the scratching sounds outside the house with increasing unease. You watch helplessly as the raccoons figure out how to take it off. And then they come in and you get eaten.

It appears that on previous occasions the raccoons had figured out how to lift the metal door by its string.

I came home to a horrible silence. No cheerful chickens chasing Japanese beetles or rooting through Jethro's dung. An empty chicken house. It turned out, I couldn't stand the silence.

So I ordered new chickens, and Menticia and I set about improving the chicken house. The hurricane got in the way this week, but we plan to build the back house up and out, and then put hinges and a hasp on the front wall. Bob says he had a raccoon that was trying to figure out the combination for the combination lock on its cage, but I'll save that paranoia for later.


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