2 May 2009

Disaster! Whilst we were out for a few hours over lunchtime today a fox came and took seven of the twelve chickens, including Ebony, the beautiful pure white Ixworth cockerel, who was such a favourite. All we found were a few feathers in various places around the farmyard.

Simon the shepherd reckons that it was a vixen with cubs, too tired to catch her usual prey of rabbits and looking for an easy meal. She would have killed them and taken them off one to be buried for eating later on. I was all for going after her but he said if we did that, the cubs would starve. I thought to myself, do we care? We have been lucky not to have had a fox visit in the last year and a half, I suppose, and it’s been so nice to see the flock roaming around the yard all day, led by Ebony, and without them it seems unnaturally quiet and empty. They sleep in the rafters in the mill at night, so are perfectly safe there.

Hannah, the Easter chick, survived as did a couple of broody hens, so we visited Mike and Carl Vince at Clopton to get a few fertilised eggs to put under one of them and will try again.