New Chicken Pen

For several months we've been moving the chicken mobile home around the yard. Finally today, they moved into their new pen. We put the finishing touches on the pen today. We moved the mobile home over to where its (hopefully) permanent spot is. Dad attached a door onto it and now we just have to build a bigger ramp and they should be happy. The chickens had a hard time adjusting to each other but over time I think they will be fine. The rooster is another story, we haven't seen what happens with that yet...

A Close Call

We had just got home from fixing some of my geocaches on the CWT and placing a new one in Tenino. I was taking the stuff out of mom's car and putting it back in mine when I heard a bunch of commotion in the back yard with the chickens. Mom was already back there checking the chickens and ducks while talking on the phone with Erika. The whole time I thought she was talking to dad. I looked to my right and saw a black dog. We also saw a lot of feathers near the chicken pen. Mom counted all the chickens and they were all there. We did not see or hear any ducks (we let them roam the yard during the day). I ran after the dog to see if he had dragged the ducks out of the yard. I didn't see anything. The dog was back in its fenced yard. There must be a hole in it somewhere. So I went back to the yard and mom was still looking and calling for them. I went back to where the dogs were just in case I missed something. I didn't see anything which was a good thing and a bad thing. I went back to my yard and mom was taking to them. There just wasn't enough feathers to assume they had been killed. There were no drag marks and we didn't see any bodies. They had sensed danger when the dog came into the yard and they retreated to their pen and then huddled inside their house and were dead silent. When we initially went out there, we did not hear a single noise, and these are usually really loud ducks. They slowly came out of their house and did not want to come out of their pen. The chickens were really stirred up as well. I asked mom if the 2x4's were suppose to be on the ground. She said she did take one off this morning but the dog must have taken the second one off. Now we have to write the neighbors a note stating if we see that dog in our yard again it is subject to a gun shot wound.