Mea Culpa

There is no one to blame but myself.  It was getting dark, I didn't have a flashlight and, after putting the big girls to bed two nights ago, I decided not to take a chance on falling in the chicken pen.  The little girls were all inside anyway.  Not often, but there had been a few times in the past that I'd not shut the doors to the coop without problems.  Going out to feed in the morning, the hen house was strangely quiet.  "Oh, please, let everyone be all right."  And then I saw a body lying in the pen.  "No, oh no!"  Expecting to find all the others huddled together inside, I couldn't believe that they were all gone.  All of the hens and Nicholas, gone.  I looked in the laying boxes and in dark corners, then went outside to look again.  This couldn't be.  There was a second body in the corner of the pen, one of the brown leghorns.  Whatever the thing or things were, they had taken six chickens in the night and left just these two on the ground.  I had failed to keep my animals safe and my guilt and grief were overwhelming.  I brought the bodies out and put them on the stand by the water faucet to be bagged up later, and went down to tend to the goats.

Back at the house, I called a place down in Shingle Springs called The Poultry Palace, thinking to replace the flock immediately.  It's not the time of year for chicks, and I hoped for older hens anyway.  Talking with Jay, he thought the killer might have been foxes, but probably a bobcat.  I'd walked the fence and found no holes either in the fence or underneath, so it had to have been something big enough to jump over.  Going out later to take care of the two remains, I couldn't believe it, but they were gone!  Whatever it was, it had come back for the leftovers in broad daylight.  After consideration, I called Jay back and told him I wouldn't be coming down; I didn't want to put out more bait, sentencing more chickens to death.  I will get more chickens at some time, but not yet.

How empty the nighttime routine seemed with just the goats to tuck in last night, and how it hurt my heart this morning to hear my neighbor's rooster greeting the day.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  (Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.)  I have no one to blame but myself.

It was not a good day.