The Backyard Flock: Where the wild things are

I hear a bump on the deck in the night. I get up, go to the kitchen and turn on the deck light. As I suspected, there is the masked bandit, licking a plastic take-out box he has pulled out of the recycling bin. He takes off when he sees me. I’m a bit surprised. Usually, raccoons do not run. Usually, they stay and scrutinize me or go on about their business, ignoring me. They are bold little buggers, like the one who would eat chicken feed in the coop in broad daylight, last year.

My neighbor’s brother is camping out in her backyard in a giant teepee, just on the other side of our back fence. When we were kids on Long Island we always wanted to camp out in the yard. One night at 3:00 a.m. a few years ago, I went out on the deck with a flashlight and shone it out by the coops. The place was teeming with wildlife: skunks, opossum, raccoons, and who knows what else. You wouldn’t catch me sleeping out there in a tent.

So where do the chickens fit into all of this? Well, they do sleep out there. And, although they are relatively secure in the coop at night, the raccoons try to break in with a fair amount of regularity at certain times of the year; in particular, this time of year. A couple years ago, they tore the air vents off one of my coops and reached in, trying to grab full grown chickens. You can imagine the panic that caused in the coop in the middle of the night. I lost a half-dozen chicks to raccoons the first year I had chickens. It’s a cold, cruel world right in my own backyard.

Providing comic relief to the wildlife scene, however, is Allen Street Al, our resident groundhog. When I say resident, I have to admit I’m not exactly sure where he is living lately, as I have successfully rousted him from his hole next to the foundation under our deck. But, he is out in my backyard every day. Unlike the raccoons, when he sees me he runs for his escape hole under my back fence.

Al sneaks into the chicken run every day and actually goes into one of the coops and eats the chicken feed while the chickens are in there laying. Except for the time a few years ago when Rocky, the barred rock, got fed up with his stealing and attacked him, the girls pretty much ignore him. He bothers us more than he bothers them, as he has discovered that the fastest way to get food out of a feeder is to turn it upside down. We have never had any luck stopping him from tunneling into Chickenland. Since I refuse to kill him, our only other remedy is to trap him and transport him. I have to admit to being a bit lazy about doing that.

Late yesterday afternoon, I let the chickens out in the yard. Actually, they rushed me and overwhelmed me as I opened the gate on my way to check for eggs. It was kind of early to be letting them out, so I was concerned that a hawk might come by. At the slightest noise, I would go to the door and check them. Shortly, Al arrived on the scene, eating grass alongside the girls. They were all perfectly comfortable with that arrangement. So, who am I to interfere?