Or maybe not. I saw an email post from Lorraine yesterday that most of the chickens were outside the chicken tractor with the door askew. Several were milling around the chicken tractor and several were missing. One was a victim of the marauder that assaulted our chicken tractor and its contents.
Turns out it wasn't a fox, but our new Aussie/Border Collie that we recently acquired (need to post about that now that I think about it). One of the little girls had gone out the front door and apparently Dally (we didn't name her) had escaped and promptly headed straight for the chicken tractor since that's the happening place for a dog to go on our property (followed by harassing ducks as a close second). Lorraine said she wasn't sure how long she'd been out there terrorizing the birds but was guessing about one hour.
I traded some texts with Lorraine subsequently and learned that they'd found a few of the birds, but there were still 15 or so still missing by the time I got home from work. Later in the evening we went out and found another dozen hanging around the chicken tractor. We managed to get them back into the chicken tractor. Even later we found four more and got them corralled and put back into the tractor. I found the last one in the duck coop when it was time to put the ducks to bed for the night.
So, the good news is that we went from thinking that we'd lost half of our laying flock (before a single egg had been laid) to recovering all but the one victim. The even better news is that they should be laying in just a few short weeks and we'll have plenty to sell to those of you who truly value a quality, pasture raised product.
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