We got a couple new chickens the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I have to say it was a pretty ill-advised move considering the blood-thirsty raccoons that were still roaming the neighborhood. I spend nap-time the day before (if you don’t have small kids, that being my only free time of the day) completely securing the chicken coop. Or so I thought.
We bought the chickens at night — or something like night since it gets dark at 4 pm these days — and so we put them straight in their house and closed it all up. Much to my dismay, the next morning, there was evidence that a raccoon had indeed infiltrated the coop that night. Fortunately, the chickens were locked in their house and were safe, but it was a close call nonetheless. So I patched up the places where the defenses were breached and instituted a 4 pm “bed-time” for the hens.
The next day I had to teach all afternoon and evening, so Alicia was going to put the chickens to bed, as we call it. Her email to me explains it best:
“We need to do something about the chickens. It took me almost 30 minutes to catch them and made Hannah cry (I made her help me and kept getting frustrated). Our back neighbor came over and basically said the raccoons keep coming back and messing up his yard and they are coming because of our chickens. We have to kill those raccoons. What we have now is not a viable solution. I am sure the raccoons will be here in a matter of hours and will probably find a way in again. Eventually they are going to get the latch open on the coop and kill these ones too.”
My response to her email was pretty classic:
“OK”
But then I decided to take her seriously (especially when she said the neighbor saw four raccoons on the coop the night before). So the next morning I called the fine folks over at Critter Control. Bob showed up with two traps, marshmallows and cherry puree for bait, and a plucky “Let the trapping begin.”
And let me tell you, leaving out marshmallows for raccoons seems to be like shooting at the side of a barn, because in the morning, both traps had captured their prey. Two down, who knows how many more to go. Bob said the record for a yard was 33 captures. (And all you left-of-left whiney Seattle liberals, present company included, don’t have to worry, because Critter Control brings the animals to a forest and does their best to reunite families once they’re captured.) While we were waiting for them to come pick up the two traps, the mother raccoon kept coming back to check on her trapped kids. This was kind of heart-breaking, but only a little. Hopefully she’ll get caught and be relocated to her kids’ new forest home.
And the upshot is, we still have two chickens that are alive.
Update: I just went outside to empty the kitchen scraps in the compost (10:14 pm) and there are two more raccoons trapped out there.
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Our garlic is looking happy and healthy in the ground for next fall’s crop. This is the only successful propagating we have done so far this year (or ever). We used last year’s garlic to plant this year’s and so had no need to buy anything to get another crop. Having a self propagating garden is our sustainable dream, but apparently reading one library book on the subject did not give us enough understanding to pull it off. Hopefully this year we can choose better varieties and see if anything sprouts next spring.
