Setbacks

We started out with 12 chickens, 11 babies and a hen. One got sick and we put it out of its misery. One got killed by a dog. That was last fall. One was eaten for Thanksgiving. So we had 9. Then 2 were run over by a car, at least that's what we think, about a month ago. The weekend before last, a dog killed two and injured one so severely that I had to kill it. So now we have four chickens left, which are just not enough for it to be worth the hassle, so we are getting some more in the Spring. We haven't worked out all of the logistics yet, but I'm sure we will get there. We learned a few lessons and will make some changes to the way we keep the chickens. They are not going to be completely free-range anymore, thanks to irresponsible dog owners that refuse to contain their dogs, but assured me that their dog does not attack any animals at all, even after I followed him all the way to their house from where we keep our chickens. I hate the idea of changing the way we do things because of someone else's ignorance, but we realized that we need to pen them up for some other reasons as well. Such as preventing them from tearing into out flower garden and the veggie garden we're planning to have, and from leaving their droppings in our driveway. And sadly, there is more than one free-roaming dog in the neighborhood. Christina found some simple chicken pen plans for making them out of PVC pipe, and we will give that a try. If it works well, we will make several that we connect to have one really big one, and it will be easy to move it. And when we're outside in the summer, we will let them out as well. On top of all that, one of our cats, adventurous Gator, was lost all day yesterday, and didn't show up at night either. It was such a huge relief to see him at the back door this morning as if nothing had happened.