In the interest of keeping the fire going, I went to get some small sticks from the shed that the hens share with the woodpile. When I stepped in, I saw the hens were roosting, their feathers all puffed out against the cold. I checked to see that their water wasn't frozen, then that they had food, then looked in the nest box -- where a skunk was helping him/herself to the eggs! With a muttered "oh, boy," I backed out, shut the door, and came to announce the visitor to Jeff. Long story short, he shot the skunk and threw it over the fence into the pasture.
What we can't figure is why the skunk hadn't bothered the hens. Maybe this was a philosophical skunk who thought, "Eat a hen tonight, I eat once. Let a hen live, I have an egg dinner every night."
maybe the skunk was just in there to keep warm? Glad it didn't spray you! Good luck on having peace and quite - I'm tired of this cold weather already.
ReplyDeleteKaren
http://karensquilting.com/blog/
Oh, he was definitely eating the eggs. It's sort of funny - we had blamed the hens for eating their own eggs (because we, uh, sometimes, uh, are too busy to check to see that they have food, and they do run out for a day or so once in a while). We haven't had any eggs at all lately, just lots of shells in the nest box, and we were trying to decide if we should do away with the hens, if they were going to eat the eggs before we could get to them. But now that the skunk is gone, I found an egg this morning!
ReplyDelete(And I'm REALLY glad he didn't spray, too! - glad I noticed him before he noticed me!)