As I lay sleeping peacefully last night I was rudely awakened at 0500 by my alarm. Usually, Annmarie jumps out of bed and does yoga while I contemplate the value of getting out of a warm bed. Instead this morning she rolled over turned off her alarm and went back to sleep. I decided that laying in bed and surfing the internet was a valid option to getting out of a warm bed. While I was still waiting for Facebook to load on my phone I heard it, a call to arms! A chicken was keening its death knell. (Batman get to the bat mobile!). I leapt out of bed and ran to the walk in closet. I threw on my cammo cargo pants (commando of course) and a shirt and raced down the steps. I had to run back to the laundry room to get a coat (bat suit) and my fancy high power flashlight. I stopped at the front closet to arm myself (utility belt). I opted to go big or go back to bed and grabbed the pistol grip shotgun. Now was not a time to spare the innocent, now was a time to punish the guilty! (Dark Knight). I snuck to the creek side of the old house and heard an animal under the old house. Of course after my remodel of the skirting it is impossible for me to see under or crawl under the building. There were chickens all over the chicken yard. The dummies had not gone in last night and were huddled all over the chicken yard like little bite size nuggets. You have to ask yourself what would Batman do?

I was unable to spot the offender and ended up chasing chickens around in the dark to throw them back into the coop. I didn’t want to provide dessert to the offender. While I was doing this Annmarie came out to help. She spotted the spot under the skirting where something had dug under the building. It was dug to provide the shortest path to the chicken coop! Its on, there will be blood.

I counted chickens tonight and realized we only have 22 hens left. I have lost 3 already. This is totally unacceptable and must be stopped. I baited the live trap with cheerios tonight. The real problem here is how long can one raccoon eat on three chickens?? I am betting it is several days if not an entire week. If the cheerios don’t work I may have to go to cat food. The problem with that is I catch a lot of cats. If you shake the trap before you let the cat out they only go into the trap once or twice before learning to avoid it. I cannot use any kind of leg trap as I don’t want to hurt the cats or dogs. We need both of those animals to do their respective jobs and they are not easily replaced.

It’s going to be a long winter if I have to battle this fiend all season long!

Back to the bat cave!