Toby the predator

Brian had been home for about half an hour when he heard the distress cry from our Llasa Apso, Toby. Apparently the bait in the varmit trap looked good and Toby went in after it. No harm came to him and I'm sure he is not the one stalking chickens, but at least we know the trap works.

Sorrow

There is a predator attacking our chickens. It has killed three bird over the last two nights. One of which was the broody hen. I put her eggs in the incubator right away and so far, two of them have hatched. She was so close to completing her task! It really makes me sad. The baby chicks are as cute as can be. So far we have 12 in the brooding house and at least 15 more in the incubator. So maybe we'll have a lot more joy by the end of the week.

So many changes.

It has been a week of changes. The incubator burst into life on Saturday morning as I headed out to market. 8 lovely baby chicks! Woke up to an indignant peeping this morning- another addition to the flock! Still 7 eggs that we are waiting on. The broody hen in the chicken house is still sitting and waiting.
The biggest surprise was a mamma guinea hen coming out of the woods with 15 baby guineas following her. She has a group of 4 other guineas helping to protect and monitor the babies and the noise level around here has increased tremendously as they all try to distract us from their proteges. It makes my day perfect to see them running around. We've never had a successful wild hatch with the guineas before, so we've never seen the babies' behavior when they are raised by a parent. SO much quicker and coordinated than in a brooder.
The sad event was our beloved bearded dragon dying. She was completely alert and entertaining the night before, then was cold and still in the morning.

I am getting the impression that God blesses us with new life to help put salve on our wounds as we grieve those who die.

Praying each day that the broody hen gets her chicks soon--she's been working so hard and I feel she deserves her reward.