Portage River Farm

I had recently added a simple roost to the coop made from two boards and some branches. The chickens are so happy with this addition that it has become their favorite place to hang out. At sunset each evening, they begin jostling for the favored roost positions for the night. By the time that I arrive to close them in, they are generally already inside and prettily perched in neat rows.

As Freya and I emerged from the house into the late evening air, our noses told us right away that a skunk had recently sprayed somewhere very close by. While I have yet to see any skunks on our property, the smell is common enough that I gave it little thought. Crossing the back yard, Freya commented, "It really stinks out here!"

We made our way through the gate and arrived at the doorway to the coop. Immediately I noticed that the floor of the coop was littered with large clumps of feathers. I entered and peered around the dimly lit interior to discover the partially eaten body of a chicken in one corner beneath the new roost.

I carried the poor bird out into the light where Freya and I could examine it. It turned out to be one of the roosters. One side of his body had been stripped of feathers and we could clearly see where something with a relatively small mouth had dined on the muscles of his chest and belly. In the manner of a forensics investigator, I felt the temperature of the meat and checked for any stiffening of the remains. I concluded that the crime had been committed recently, most likely within an hour of our discovery.

The culprit was clearly a very different animal from the last predatory visitor to our hen house. On that occasion it was either a cougar or a coyote that had simply jumped clear over the 4 1/2 foot fence. The two chickens that died that night showed signs of a large-jawed creature that had consumed all but the foot of one bird and cut the second one cleanly in half. This time, the apparently much smaller creature had simply nibbled away at the easily accessible meat and had worked around the bones rather than chewing through them.

I returned to the coop and counted the jittery chickens. Prior to this event, we had 21 birds. My count only came up with 19! That meant that there was still a second bird missing somewhere. I counted a second time paying more attention to the sexes of the birds remaining and reached the conclusion that the second missing bird was a hen. The loss of a rooster that we had planned to slaughter this fall merely meant one less roaster for the table. The potential loss of a hen was much more serious because I had intended to keep all of the females as breeding stock for next year's flock.

By this time the light of sunset had dimmed to the point that we could not see very well. Freya and I retrieved flashlights from the house and began our search. We looked over every inch of the chicken yard but failed to find any sign of the missing hen. Since the predator did not seem capable of eating the bird whole and probably could not carry her off, I found myself hoping that perhaps in the panic of the attack she had managed to fly over the fence. Maybe she was out there in the woods somewhere hiding. If she could survive the night full of owls and other deadly creatures there was some chance that she could be found by the light of day.

Braving the ever-present mosquitoes, Freya and I made two circuits around the 300 foot long perimeter fence looking for any signs of entry. I was sure that I would find a fresh pile of dirt where the culprit had dug underneath. Despite our efforts, we failed to turn up any obvious point of entry. Since most of the chickens were safely closed in the coop, we surrendered the night to the damnable mosquitoes and made our way back to the house.

Believe it or not, it wasn't until quite a bit later that I finally made the connection between the reeking skunk smell in the backyard and the dead rooster. In my defense, my reluctance to reach that conclusion was fueled by the lack of an obvious entry point. In the absence of that evidence, I was forced to conclude that whatever had made the attack, had done so by climbing over the fence. While I believed that an opossum or a raccoon might climb the fence, I felt pretty sure that a skunk would not attempt the same feat.

At sunrise the next morning, I headed out to release the chickens from the coop to spend the day in the yard. As I reached for the door handle, I heard a faint cooing sound coming from the area behind the coop. As I turned to look, the missing hen emerged from the cover of one of the pine trees in the chicken yard and walked out on a branch toward me. I quickly opened the coop door and then walked over to pick her up and make sure she was unhurt. She allowed me to pick her up as she continued her cooing and sing-song hen sounds. A quick inspection revealed that she was none the worse for wear except that she smelled strongly of skunk spray.

I stood there for a while petting her as the rest of the chickens poured from the coop to greet the day. I was relieved that she had survived the attack and the long night in the tree. Before long the morning routine of the roosters, which involves chasing and attempting to breed with every hen in sight, began in earnest around me.

We have dubbed the alpha rooster with the name "Marco Pollo" (the latter word intentionally spelled and pronounced as POI-yo as in the Spanish word for "chicken"). He is naturally our most aggressive bird who nips at our hands and legs any chance he can get. True to form, he emerged from the coop and came straight at me and began pecking at my shoes.

My remedy for this behavior has been to pick him up and give him a forced petting until he behaves nicely. To do this, I placed the poor hen who survived the night in the tree on the ground and enduring a few pinching nips on my fingers, picked Marco up to pet him. Right away I noticed that Marco did not smell of skunk and I started asking him where all of his aggression had gone when the skunk came around.

Roosters being roosters, they began a noisy pursuit of the surviving hen around the chicken yard. She had three of them in tow as she squawked and ran figure eights around my feet begging for rescue from the unwanted ardour. Before I realized what was happening, she had taken flight over the heads of the roosters and came in a wildly flapping arc toward me. She lit on my shoulder and from there stared down at the perplexed roosters.

After work that evening, I resumed my search for the hole where the skunk had breached the fence. I used my gas-powered weed whacker to mow a wide swath around the fence while I looked carefully at the ground for any sign. The solution to the mystery eluded me once again as I completed the circuit of the fence and returned to the front gate.

It was at that moment that all finally became clear. As I put down the Weedwacker, I noticed that the bottom of the coop yard gate had a large opening in the chicken wire. It was easily big enough for a skunk to walk right through! This hole was caused indirectly by poor carpentry. When I built the gate I had failed to account for sagging. This omission on my part means that the gate sticks at the bottom corner and requires a light kick with your toe to get it open. Over time, our misdirected kicks had overshot the bottom board of the gate and gradually pushed the chicken wire in the center so far away that the staples had pulled out. This left a huge opening in our defences which the opportunistic skunk had exploited.

I have since repaired the gate by adding a second board to close the hole and act as a larger kick plate for opening. Perhaps I will eventually go so far as to properly support the gate so that it will no longer sag. In the mean time, I believe the chickens are once again safe from skunk attack. As far as we know, the skunk has not returned for a second course. Our neighbor mentioned that he had watched a young skunk amble down his driveway in the direction away from our coop. Let's just hope he found easier pickings somewhere else!