Today’s Run: 8.00 miles
Two nights ago my husband was up at early o’clock letting the cats out. While doing this he observed a rather large opossum meandering on our back deck. He tried whispering, “Shoo! Shoo!” but the opossum was not impressed. The opossum was not the least bit concerned about the cats either. Cheeky thing!
When I got up in the morning, my husband told me about the encounter. I said, (and I do not want to offend anybody here with what I said), “You shot it. Right!?!”
“Well, no. It was at 2:30 am! What would the neighbors think of a gun going off at that time of day!”
I replied, “I really am not concerned about the neighbors. This is the country. That would be fair play. That thing had better not have got any of my chickens!”
We went out about an hour later, early daylight, to move the chickens to a new location. The chickens were not their usual perky selves. They were subdued.
I did not clue into this right away. I should have.
We relocated the chicken tractor. Put up the fencing again. The chickens just trudged along with us. Usually they are high spirited when we do this. Not this time. “Hmmmm,” I thought.
Everything was as it should be and I did my last “chore” and that was to collect the eggs. I lifted the lid to the nesting boxes and was speechless. There was one of my hens. Deceased is a nice way to put it. That nasty opossum had surprised her as she was laying an egg and had had fresh chicken for breakfast.
I was angry! I was seething!!!!
How dare a predator get at my chickens. I try very, very hard to keep them safe! Oooooowwww, that opossum had better watch out.
Last evening, I had MFH (My Favorite Husband) make an attachment to tie down the lid to the nesting boxes with a bungee chord. Let us see an opossum open that! Or a raccoon for that matter.
When he was done with the bungee chord, I made sure that the trap was set. I was seeing red.
This morning, the first thing I did was check the trap. Yup. There, pacing rapidly back and forth was that nasty opossum. Ha! Gotcha!