We lost Anabel this evening. I'm very sad about it. Just this afternoon she was hitching a ride on Dh's back/shoulder while he was moving one of the leghorns. She really liked people.

If you don't want the details, don't read further.












We have been keeping the 3 new girls in a cage in the hen yard during the day, unless Dh is in with them, or they are in bed. At night they sleep in chicken coop # 2, in a deep bed of hay, which they love. They still aren't large enough to put with the grown hens unwatched, and the divider never got put in the hen yard as Ds has a real problem for which he's going to have a stress test in a couple of weeks.

This was working fine for now. The cage they are in during the day is kind of like a large canary cage in so far as the bar width; rather close together. But, because I worry about my babies around other animals, including cats when they were at Ds's house, we covered the cage in dove wire/hardware cloth with 1/8" little squares. So, we thought them safe.

Tonight, when Dh went to gather the little girls and put them in their coop box for the night, he only saw 2 on approaching. When he got closer, he saw Anabel, in literal pieces outside of the cage. Something had pulled her out of the cage. There was zero blood which was strange in itself.

He was so upset, and I don't blame him as it was a horrible discovery.

Apparently, where the tray under the cage meets the cage, there's a small gap if you move the cage just right. How did an animal figure that out, before it was even dark, when even we didn't know it?

So, not only did we lose Anabel, but now I'm concerned about the other 2. We won't let them out of their coop until we have a plan, in the morning.