Sometimes our life here at the farm feels like an experiment of epic proportions. I think it’s partly that because we are a family-run farm, things change every day because WE change every day. The kids are growing to be more and more a part of farm happenings. They seem to love every minute of it and are always listening for Matt to come in and say, “Would you like to come with me?” The answer is always yes!

So we feel extremely blessed, that though the work is hard and seems to sometimes move at a snail’s pace, making the end of the to-do list so far away that you hardly believe it’s even there (maybe it’s not, ha!), what a joy it is to share this life with our kiddos, teaching them the skills they need to succeed, whether in the future of this farm, or some other venture of their own.

Part of involving them is trying to take a little time to just enjoy the space we are in. That usually looks like Sunday afternoon walks. We go exploring different areas on the farm—sometimes the pond, sometimes the cow paddock, sometimes the woods. This time we took an old trail that we haven’t explored in a while. There were neat old grapevines struggling to reach the sunshine on the other side of a very tall canopy of pines and holly trees. No grapes, sadly. But there was an interesting old gorge and lots of American beauty berry. I didn’t take many pictures because at first it felt like a same-old walk in the woods. Enjoyable for us, but not that interesting for blog material. But I did snap a few photos of the kids monkeying around.

 

It was an ordinary, peaceful evening walk. Until…

We had finished our frolic and started back up the hill toward home. We took a slightly different path—why, who knows. There really weren’t any paths, actually, just the occasional passage through the brush, so you pick the one of least resistance. Suddenly, there on the ground was a huge pile of feathers. Very clearly chicken feathers. OUR chickens’ feathers, and it certainly seemed to be from more than one bird. The light-red feathers of our young layer flock were here located over a quarter mile from where the chickens were SUPPOSED to be.

Matt had suspected some predation was going on, and recently got a skunk that had invaded the chicken pen. But this was the work of no skunk. It was a larger animal, something capable of carrying its prey a long distance. We have our ideas of what it might be. But the main goal instantly became: secure chicken pen. We headed that way next.

We have been long-time advocates of keeping a livestock guardian dog in with pastured hens. There are so many different chicken predators in Texas that a nice mellow breed like Great Pyrenees, though it is super rare that they ever actually have to FIGHT a predator, their imposing presence is great insurance against attacks. And their favorite activity is to stay up all night and bark at the darkness, as any Pyrenees owner will affirm. Haha!

Now, the thing about the livestock guardian dogs is that they mostly only protect the chickens INSIDE the pen. Sometimes our hens get to feeling extra-adventurous and literally “fly the coop!” Oh, they stick around. All the good stuff is inside the pen—the food, the water, the shade, plus 600 of your closest friends… I think maybe they just get excited and flap around and suddenly find themselves on the outside, trying to get back in! When we arrived, sure enough, there were two little red hens hanging around on the outside of the fence. Come dusk, they’d be some coyote’s chicken-dinner-for-two, so we have learned a little trick for this situation, too. Our two oldest sons each grabbed one of the escaped chickens. The oldest pulled out his Swiss army knife and trimmed down her flight feathers on one side. This is 100% painless—just like cutting your fingernails! And the hen can still use her wings to land and coast. It just keeps her from being able to completely lift off and get over the fence.

Back into the paddock after her little haircut, and hopefully she’ll learn to remain safely inside the fence where she belongs, even after her feathers grow back in. I don’t know that she left a tip for her stylist, though. 😉 

As for the predators that are daring enough to cross the fence themselves, well it just so happens that we have a rather goofy but very large and intimidating Pyrenees named Long John Slobber. Named, well, because he slobbers, but also because he is HUGE, with a super long tail to match. You’ll have met him if you’ve come out to the farm store within the past few months. He used to guard a different flock of hens until they retired last spring, and he’s been out of a job since.

Long John is pretty shy and only has a slight enjoyment of patting. Our oldest son, the resident animal whisperer, was able to get a collar on him, but Pyrs don’t like leashes so much. And he’s well over 100 lb, so carrying him to the chicken pen wasn’t an option, either.

But Long John had to go back in with those hens. Predators never decrease unless conditions change. Things looked pretty grim if we didn’t take some kind of action. Word would surely get out that there’s a free chicken buffet located at Shady Grove Ranch, and we’d soon be lacking a very important flock of chickens! 

The two farm dogs, Shadow and Long John, enjoy following us around on our walks, so they followed us down near the hens. Matt tried unsuccessfully to grab Long John’s collar, and away he went. So we tried a different method—Matt opened up the chicken fence and set it up around the two dogs (and us). Then he carried Long John into the middle of the chicken paddock while Shevi and I reinstalled the fence.

I didn’t get the memo that the still-standing portion of the electric fence was still energized, so when I took the “cold” fence and tried to attach it to the other, I got quite the zap! Whoops! Matt then demonstrated how to reconnect them without getting shocked. “You just touch it between pulses!” He lives for a thrill, ha! I’ll pass and stick to writing stories about other people playing with electric fences!

We stayed for a bit longer while Long John settled in, watching the kids play hide-and-seek in the tall grass. Tevka volunteered to be “it,” so the other four went to hide. They were shockingly hard to find, until Danny sneezed, and then the grass around him started wiggling. I laughed and laughed as Tevka ran over and tagged him, and then he resumed cruising around his yellow dump truck while she proceeded to find the others.

The next morning, all seemed well. Long John seemed content with his new employment. Hopefully that’s the last pile of feathers we find for a while! The experiment continues…