Hoffmann Homestead

The time has come. We’ve had our chickens for 9 months with zero indication that predators could get to them. Then we came back from a long weekend vacation and boom, two chickens missing.

Two out of our ten chickens were just gone. Not much evidence as to what happened to them other than the feathers at the fence and feathers in the neighbors yard. Just feathers and some traumatized remaining chickens.

Loss was something I knew I needed to prepare for, but I still wasn’t ready. I knew getting into chickens that I wasn’t going to be the luckiest chicken owner on the planet and never have loss or disease in my flock, but I don’t think I could have prepared my heart for this situation.

I’m not overly attached to my birds. They’re very much farm animals to me and most of them don’t have names. But they’re mine. They are my responsibility to protect and I have always taken that very seriously. I failed my birds and now the birds I have left don’t even feel safe going into their coop at night. Where they once used to walk inside as the sun began to set, they now only feel safe climbing on top in an attempt to stay higher.. stay safer.

One of my remaining birds even has all of her tail feathers missing. While I initially tried to tell myself she was just molting, her pecking nervous demeanor where a happy lady used to be tells me I’m wrong. She was nearly the third victim and she doesn’t trust me anymore.

I can’t really blame her. I’m utterly infuriated with my failure. My failure led to my charges being dead or traumatized and I don’t know how to recover.

I know we will though. I will go put my birds in their coop every night until they learn to trust their home again.

I will do daily perimeter checks to make sure no weak spots can be exploited again.

I will do everything I can to make sure these birds once again feel safe. With me and with their home.

It doesn’t help now, but this spring, we will rebuild their run and make sure those weak spots don’t exist like they do now. What has sufficed for 9 months will be replaced and I hope they learn to trust me again. I hope I learn to trust myself again.

If you’ve never experienced this loss, just know it’s a thing to avoid. Don’t get comfortable and think you don’t have to close their inner door. Keep doing the extra step even if you think they’re “safe”.

If you have experienced this loss, I’m so sorry. I feel it in my heart in a way I cannot describe and in a way I’ve never felt before. I mourn my missing birds and I mourn the safety my existing birds used to feel. I hope your mourning is softening and I hope you never have to experience it again. I know this is common, but man, this blows.