Well, we’re certainly proof-testing the wire on the Fortress of Attitude. I was out at my garden spot working on the fencing when I heard the chicks crying for mercy; Littlest Hen has taken it upon herself to chase them around. I went to look in on them a little later and could only find two of the five. Three had gotten out – I was pretty sure I knew how – and I couldn’t find them anywhere.
Usually when a chicken gets loose it’s easy to spot. They don’t go far and move in a distinctively chickenish way. But I couldn’t find these three anywhere. I climbed the slope and looked in the gully, out over the meadow, all around the cabin: Nothing. They couldn’t all be dead already, they hadn’t been gone long enough! They should be out in the open, because that’s what chickens have always done.
But I finally found one of them, hiding under the powershed and being very still.
This is a problem. The powershed is not made for crawling under, and the chicks don’t see me as the answer to any of their problems so she’s certainly not going to come to me. Plus I’m still missing two of them. It’s possible they got under the cabin, but since they could only enter from the front and it’s guarded by Little Bear it’s…well, it’s still possible. I didn’t see them, but that doesn’t mean a lot.
Anyway, the one I know about is safe for the moment even though I can’t recapture her. I set water where she can get it, and hope she’ll wander out within capture range when she gets hungry.
I’ve now found two spots in the Fortress’s wire that weren’t chick-proof. Wonder how many more there are?
Chickens. Huh.
Oh yeah, the eternal problem. When I had animals, my first chore of each and every morning was to pace every fence line and pen, looking for the weak spots. I didn’t always find them in time, but overall I found enough to make a powerful difference in how many animals I had to spend even more time and effort to track down and recover… and how many I never saw again.
As for the chicken hiding under the structure, or wherever. They will come out at dusk to go roost in their normal place. If the three missing are the new ones (I assume at least one is), that will be a problem because their normal roosting spot is nowhere near them. You can open the main door of the chicken coop you have, and see if they will all go in there to roost. But you probably can’t count on it for the new ones unless they’ve been there at least a few days.
They MIGHT roost in a box with a perch in it, however. If you can figure out how to make that box/perch the most convenient choice this evening (put it close to the one you located), you may recover that chicken and the others if they find it. Just go out before first light – and I mean before ANY natural light – and close the box…. Then they can be returned to the regular pen easily.
Good luck. Chickens IS stupid. sigh