Buddy the Rooster has not wanted to get into the chicken coop at night. He has been sleeping on the roof. I dont love this as it leaves him vulnerable to predators. So far ive left him alone about it but when the hens started joining him i began grabbing them and putting them up at night because thats ridiculous. We’re not all gonna regress and sleep on the roof because the rooster does. Load up. Anyways, i sleep with one eye open because i know Buddy is out there alone. This morning i sat straight up in bed when i heard the scream of a fox very close to the house. I sprang out of bed and grabbed my head lamp. I struggled to get the dogs out of the way and flung the door open. The fox was still screaming to the left side of the yard in the direction of the chicken pens. i went to the pen and told Buddy i was here and id protect him. The fox circled the property and ended up in the direction of the driveway, then finally the noise came from the right side of the property, in the direction of the greenhouse. I couldnt leave him out there. The fox could probably smell him, and hear him since he’d been crowing off and on for an hour. He’d be like a sitting duck, as close to the fence as he preferred to sit there on the roof. He was the only nice rooster id ever had. I didnt want anything to happen to him before february when i could incubate his eggs. Then the fox screaming came in real loud. It had undoubtedly ventured in close to my setup, close to the house and the chicken pens, for me to hear it that loud, though i never saw it. I made an executive decision. Id been patient with him so far but integration had to happen. I grabbed Buddy like a football and opened the door to the coop. I put him in the coop with his hens and locked the door. Well, fighting ensued. It sounded like a bar-house brawl was going on in there. I felt a need to let him out, to separate and preserve everybody in pristine condition, but i fought the urge to open the door. I knew better. A fox could do more damage to my flock than they could to each other. After a couple of minutes the noise, commotion, and wing flapping settled down. They stopped hurling themselves into the walls. The new seating chart was decided upon. Though it made me nervous that i was going to wake up to a destroyed chicken coop, ripped apart at its seams, i left them together inside the coop and returned to the house, the fox still outside screaming its head off. I wanted all my hens and my rooster, Buddy, put up for the night and safe from whatever banshee was very nearby. The rifle remained loaded. I did do a walk around the area but the screamer didnt fancy a tangle with me as i never got a look at the producer of all that noise. I just knew from the sound of it that it was a fox. They can be cunning and sly and theres two that live in this area. My neighbor’s truce with me is that they are the favorite critters of his parents who live a couple properties over and they feed them and keep them so well fed that they wont want to hunt my chickens and i in turn dont shoot them. However, if they do try to take a chicken, i will shoot them. So, i dont know if they forgot to feed one of their two lovebird foxes or this was a new fox but i wasnt taking any chances. I hope the chickens and Buddy stay settled in and calm but i just couldnt risk losing Buddy so he had to learn to sleep in the coop with the hens tonight.
I used to fill the food dispensers and let the chickens gather round to pull food from there but during rainy years i just toss the scratch on the ground and the reason i do that is because each time it rains the food gets wet in the dispenser and becomes cement. Then i have to pick it all out of the bottom and the bottom of the inside compartment and let it dry completely before the food will descend properly. Its easier just to put the scratch on the ground when its wet or rainy and they’re just going to use their feet to put it on the ground anyways even when its in the dispenser.