Last night when I got home, I peeked in on the chicks who were happily chirping away and either eating or huddled together for warmth, some right up under the heat lamp with their feather's all fluffed. Before we went to Philadelphia, Smeg and I had realized that the chics could not be left in their open boxes in the garage. For one thing, they were getting too big. For another, there was no way to protect them. If we closed the door from the outside to the garage, the dog wouldn't be able to get in and out, and if we left it open, they were vulnerable to predators that might get into the garage, like the neighborhood cats. So, we moved them. We built an enclosure under our deck, covered the deck with tarps to keep the rain and wet off them, hung heat lamps from under the deck. We built a little half wall of straw bales all around them then put chicken wire from the straw bales (driven into the straw bales with tent pegs) and stapled it to the deck so they were all fully enclosed. To keep our cats and other's out, we ran one strip of chicken wire across the top of the one open area. Unfortunately, we ran out and used a lenth of screen (like for windows) on the last bit.
Up until now, it worked beautifully. The babies are 2 months and 1 week old, they've got plenty of room to run about, a large box that is their "coop", that is mostly open on the top so that the heat lamp can shine in. We just wanted them to get used to the idea of going into a coop for the night. Despite a few lingering worries about the cold, they were doing wonderfully with the heat lamps.
Last night, despite the 20 degree weather I was grilling steaks on the deck when I heard the chicks making a bit of a ruckus, which happens sometimes, but one of them was seriously squawking. I thought it was hurt, so I asked Smeg to please go out and check on them thinking one had gotten stuck between the coop box and the straw bale. Which happens on occasion. Chickens are not the brightest birds.
When she went down, I heard her yelling and then she called for me. So I went running down...an owl had gotten into the coop where the screening material had fallen in due to recent snow. Apparently the owl was injured and thought our little heated shelter complete with food supply was too good to pass up. It killed twelve of the babies. It couldn't get out, so Smeg had to chase it out of the coop with a mop, which was the first thing I could find. Any beak that could easily snap the chicks heads off...wasn't getting near a finger. Unless of course you're my mother who thought she should try and catch it. *FACEPALM*
We managed to get the owl out and it still didn't fly off, we managed to chase it out of the yard enough to get it up onto the fence, but it was clearly injured.
Smeg and I picked up all the bits of dead chicks, put them into a bag and put it up where the dog couldn't get it. We considered leaving some of the bodies outside the coop just in case the owl came back maybe it wouldn't go back into the coop, but then we were afraid that the dog would get them and...messy. I put the screen back up and reattched it and we went back inside.
At 12:38 this morning, I thought I heard something in the yard, but it didn't repeat so I didn't get up. Ten minutes later, we heard something banging against the side of the house and knew-the owl was back. Smeg and I pulled on whatever clothes were at hand and ran outside into the 15 degree weather and sure enough, the owl was back in the coop and we has seven more dead chicks. This time I went in, but I couldn't get it out, it just crouched in the box, STARING at me as I tried to push it out of the box with the mop. We managed to get him out again and t his time Shadow tried to chase the owl away. It still could not fly, so Shadow ended up getting a bite somewhere, we couldn't see where because she was in the dark, but she yelped.
This time we cut out part of the big chickens fenced in run which is made of wire fencing material and put that where the screen had been. Cleaned up the dead ones again and went back to bed. Shadow apparently thought she wasn't done guarding the chicks, because she didn't want to come int. It still took a while to go back to sleep, listening to see if it got in again. Worried that we'd lose more chicks to shock during the night.
This morning however, all was fine. The new fencing on the roof of the run kept the owl out. Shadow appears fine, so I'm guessing the owl didn't manage to break skin. We haven't lost any more to shock, suprisingly, but good. I'm exhausted after getting up at 6 am. I guess we've experienced our first farming loss and first time with OMG we must protect the livestock. We made mistakes and we've learned a few things. Mostly now, sad over the little ones we failed to protect adequately and distressed over the amount of time and energy that was lost with the birds we lost. 19 of our 57 new babies. The older chickens were safe inside their coop and the owl couldn't fit through the door.