Sunday, October 17, 2010

The circle of life

Friday night when I closed up the chickens, I found my blue cochin bantam hen Fatima, lying dead on the floor. No signs of being killed, and she hadn't appeared sick, so I don't know what happened. As my grandmother, Mimi used to say "chickens just die" - I always need to remember this.
I took Fatima's body to the end of the property so something wild could have dinner. The next morning only a few feathers were left. I don't mind giving up the bodies to feed the foxes and raccoons, just as long as they leave the live ones alone!

The raccoon has been back a couple more times but hasn't been able to get into any barrels of food (the new sack of cat food is still in the house).

Now for the exciting news: Midnight has brought her kittens back to the barn. They were born about Aug 15 under the toolbox in the barn, but she moved them a couple weeks later when I was doing too much cleaning and banging around in there. She moved them over under the neighbors A-frame shed and I hadn't seen them since. I knew they were ok, as Midnight is obviously nursing. So yesterday morning there were two little fuzzy heads peeking over the hay. They actually came out to eat and have goat's milk so I could see them fairly well. Don't know the sex of them yet, but the black one's name is Onyx. The gray one will be Pearl if it is a female, if a male then maybe Cloudy or Foggy

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