A sad day at the homestead. Our rooster was taken by the bobcat, and in mid-afternoon too!
I was in the house when he struck. I had been out in the front of the house, cutting up fallen branches with my little chainsaw, but was sitting at the dining room table when it happened. I heard the wrong kind of squawking coming from the front yard. I didn’t suspect a predator attack — not in such broad daylight — but that it was some inter-hen squabble that needed to be broken up. I was out the front door within seconds of hearing the ruckus. I saw a spray of feathers only a few yards from the front steps.
A hint of movement caught my eye. There, in shadow at the edge of the woods, was a bobcat with a chicken in its mouth. He paused to look back at me for a split second before running into the woods. I thought I heard the rooster clucking excitedly around the corner of the house, so I figured the cat had taken one of the hens. I rounded them up to put them back in the run. Two of them were so upset by the attack that they were difficult to dislodge from under the bush they were hiding under.
But, when I got them all back in the run, all the hens were there. It was the rooster that the cat had taken. He probably did his highest rooster duty of fighting the predator to save his girls.
It’s a sad day in that he was the best rooster we’d had: well-behaved around humans and yet steadfast in his role as flock manager & protector. He’ll be a tough act to follow.
I had hoped to have one of my broody-prone hens sit on a clutch again this year, but not any more. By the time one of them gets in the broody mood (typically mid-May), they’ll not longer be laying fertilized eggs. So, In the spirit of The Show Must Go On, I got out our incubator. We might be able to raise Son of Rooster. Maybe he’ll have a similar temperament.
The hens had laid six eggs today, the last three collected while still warm. Yesterday had some too. Hens lay fertile eggs for many days after they had been mated, but fertile eggs can’t get below 40° or so and remain viable. So, this time of year, eggs have to be collected fairly soon after being laid. I’ll try to collect some tomorrow too and replace those collected yesterday.
Ideally, we’ll have 9 or 10 likely-fertilized eggs for the incubator. We’ll know how successful we were in 21 days. My “luck” with hatching eggs is to have more roosters than hens. This time, I hope that ‘luck’ holds.
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