It’s feeling a bit like our farm is under siege right now…

Obviously I’ve already covered the bear incidents over the past couple weeks. But on Monday evening I happened to be sitting in my office and looking out my window when I noticed the chickens sprinting by, looking panicked.
I mean…more panicked than usual.

Seconds later a mangy, scabrous, gray fox came running toward them.
I pulled my best booming captain’s voice and shouted “HEYYY!” through the open window. This was enough to frighten and divert the fox’s attention for a moment, before he darted right back toward the closest hen. I yelled once more, this time standing up and leaning closer to the window screen, and this was enough to scare it off.
For a while.
Later that evening, a man toting a very large shotgun on his shoulder and cradling a frightened chicken who looked suspiciously like the one pictured above was walking down my driveway. Turned out the fox had returned, nabbed Doris (that’s the chicken’s name), and was scampering across my neighbor’s yard on its way home for take-out fajitas. He heard Doris’s screams for help so he bolted outside and chased the mangy bastard until it dropped the chicken, unhurt, and retreated into the forest.
We spent the rest of the evening going outside every 15 minutes and clapping, yelling, and generally making a racket to ensure the fox kept his distance until it was time to lock the chickens in their coop for bed.

Yesterday afternoon, I heard a commotion just outside my office window again. Now under normal circumstances I would’ve just yelled, “What?!? What’s wrong?” out my window at them. This has the dual effect of alerting any potential predators that there’s a human nearby, and reassuring our chickens of the same.

But this time they kept staccato squawking nervously… So I headed outside to check on them.

I didn’t see anything at first, thus the exasperated, “What???” off-camera. Then that same disgusting fox darted out of our bushes and ran back into the trees, it’s hairless, ratty tail disappearing into the brush. I ran after him for half a second, but Birkenstocks ain’t exactly built for speed, so I wisely called off the pursuit.

We haven’t seen him since, but I guarantee he’s still prowling around out there. Waiting.

Much like the damn raccoon who keeps dumping the chicken’s trough upside down, on the night’s where I forget to put it away in the shed, and eating the entire contents.

And to make matters even more uncomfortable, the poor chickens are suffering from a mild bout of some kind of mite/parasite. Jen has actually seen a couple crawling around on them, so we’ll have to perform a treatment of some kind on each individual chicken, as well as on their coop, this weekend. (Weather permitting.) More to come on this, I’m sure.

Speaking of various treatments, it’s not like we’re entirely au naturale out here. Quite the opposite, actually. I’m doing what I can about the smaller pests and predators…

We have bi-monthly exterminators who trap/poison mice in and around the house…

I also just set up our Japanese beetle bait traps which, I’ll admit, had a bit of a “John Rambo booby traps in the woods” kinda feel to it.

And finally we have “The Captivator,” which traps flies by the hundreds once it gets going.

Yes, those squirming things are maggots. *retch*

I’ll tell you, these particular fly traps are billed as being reusable. The instructions say to:

1. Dump the dead flies out
2. Drop a new putrescent egg-scented Tide pod into the jar with some water
3. Rehang the trap.

But I’ll level with you. I nearly vomited when I tried that maneuver the last time. So Jeremiah’s procedure is as follows:

1. Wait for trap to be completely full and cease catching new flies
2. Close trap and hermetically seal within a 400-ply lawn & leaf Hefty bag.
3. Throw bag in garbage
4. Order new Captivator from Amazon
5. Continue dispensing rampant and indiscriminate dipteran justice

It’s either that or nuke the whole thing from orbit, which I’m told is the only way to be sure.

Alas, these are all relatively easy fixes to low-impact insect/pest problems. It’s stopping the damn mammalian predators that I’m struggling with…

I mean, we could throw thousands of dollars at fencing a portion of our yard, but that won’t stop a determined predator from making their way in. I mean, foxes can easily burrow under a fence, and we’ve established that the bear has no problem scaling them.

We are still looking into a dog to help us chase off the foxes/alert us to the bears. And a new stronger rifle to assist in resolving said bear issue, once alerted. Unfortunately we’ve a family trip planned in the next few weeks and having a Great Dane puppy would make that infinitely more challenging. Soon, though.

No, I think at this point all I can do is continue going outside every 15-20 minutes and making a bunch of noise in an effort to dissuade any chicken predators.

I’m doing the best I can, girls. I’m sorry.

j.s.