Putting the Fox Amongst the Chickens

CCTV close up of criminal Chihuahua
Wanted in three states.

“Jon Snow is attacking the Chihuahua!” I commented to Scotto last night, sipping casually on my Chardonnay and observing the heady drama unfolding below the lofty heights of our deck.

Jon Snow is our tiny bantam hen and while she is basically the same size as the Chihuahua, she suffers from a dearth of carnivorous teeth, thus placing herself at a decided disadvantage when confronting a known chicken killer.

Fortunately, the Chihuahua merely gazed at her in curious fascination and no feathers were ruffled in the altercation. 

This week, Scotto and I embarked on a precarious experiment by allowing our four ravenous hounds to intermingle with our fowlish creatures. 

We held our breath as the thirty-five kilogram, lumbering German Shepherd energetically competed for scraps with the chickens. 

Yum! Bread!

We hung on tenterhooks as the Chihuahua fastidiously sniffed the bottoms of the Silkie Chickens and we drew blood digging our fingernails into palms as the Fox Terrier diligently rounded the flock of chickens into their coops at dusk. 

Chihuahua: Why am I smaller than a fricken chicken?

But there were no fatal attacks.

In fact, the chickens were utterly nonplussed by the presence of all canine, wolf-like creatures and to our amazement, we created a blissfully Utopian society where feathers and fur came to a perfect political and social realisation of harmony. 

Now that the happy chickens free range all day, you would expect an abundance of eggs. Sadly, the little bee-artches are too busy pecking around for worms to find any time to hop in their nesting boxes and squirt out a cackle-berry. 

Actual photo of Foxy amongst the chickens

Either that or a large snake is entering the coop during the day and eating all the eggs. .. or possibly a German Shepherd. 

Is that Chihuahua really pissing on our coop?

A trio of menacing magpies used to swoop-dive the chickens in an ongoing dispute over worm territory. It was like watching F-4 Fighting Phantoms in a dogfight over the skies of Vietnam, circa 1965.

Recently, Lyanna Marmont (the big black chicken), lost her shit and grabbed one of the marauding magpies by the neck as it swooped. 

The astonished infiltrator struggled and screeched for a good minute before escaping; leaving Lyanna standing triumphant; mollified, and sporting a beak full of magpie plumage.

The maggies still swoop but, shrewdly, never make direct contact anymore.

One day soon, our little hare, Mixy, will be big enough to intermingle with the others. 

Then I really will have a Beatrix Potter garden.

Of course, I will also need a badger.

And a squirrel.

And maybe a duck…

Anyone know where I can source a badger?